VINDICLE  HIBERNIC.E 

OR, 


AN  ATTEiWPT  TO  DEVELOP  AND  EXPOSE  A  FEW  OF 

THE  MULTIFARIOUS  ERRORS  AND  FALSEHOODS 
RESPECTING  IRELAND, 

IN  THE  HISTORIES  OF 

MAY,  TEMPLE,  WH1TELOCK,  BORLASE,  RUSHWORTH, 

CLARENDON,  COX,  CARTE,  LELAND,  WARNER, 

MACAULEY,  HUME,  AND  OTHERS  : 

PARTICULARLY  IN  THE  LEGENDARY  TALES  OF 

THE  CONSPIRACY  AND  PRETENDED  MASSACRE 

OF   1641. 


BY  M.  CAREY, 

AUTHOB  OF  ESSAYS  ON  BANKING,  POLITICAL  OLIVE  BRANCH,  &C. 


"The  history  of  Ireland's  unhappy  connexion  with  England,  exhibits,  from 
first  to  last,  a  detail  of  the  most  persevering,  galling,  grinding,  insulting,  and 
systematic  oppression,  to  be  found  any  where,  except  among  the  Helots  of  Sparta, 
There  is  not  a  national  feeling  that  has  not  been  insulted  and  trodden  under 
foot ;  a  national  right  that  has  not  been  withheld,  until  fear  forced  it  from  the 
grasp  of  England  ;  or  a  dear  or  ancient  prejudice  that  has  not  been  violated, 
in  that  abused  country.  As  Christians,  the  people  of  Ireland  have  been  denied, 
under  penalties  and  disqualifications,  the  exercise  of  the  rites  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  venerable  for  its  antiquity;  admirable  for  its  unity;  and  consecrated  by 
the  belief  of  some  of  the  best  men  that  ever  breathed.  As  men,  they  have  been 
deprived  of  the  common  rights  of  British  subjects,  under  the  pretext  that 
they  were  incapable  of  enjoying  them  :  which  pretext  had  no  other  foundation 
than  their  resistance  of  oppression,  only  the  more  severe  by  being  sanctioned 
by  the  laws.  England  first  denied  them  the  means  of  improvement ;  and  then 
insulted  them  -with  the  imputation  of  barbarism."  PAULDING. 

"  There  is  but  little  respite  from  exasperating  oppression  and  unmerited 
cruelty.  The  eye  wanders  over  a  dreary  scene  of  desolation,  without  a  single 
point  on  which  it  can  rest.  The  heart  of  the  Philanthropist  sinks  under  a 
hopeless  despondency  ;  and  passively  yields  to  the  unchristian  and  impious 
reflection,  that  the  poor  people  of  Ireland  are  a  devoted  race,  whom  Provi- 
,dence  has- abandoned  to  the  malignant  ingenuity  of  an  insatiable  enemy." 

LAWLESS. 

"  There  is  no  instance,  even  in  the  ten  persecutions,  of  such  severity  as  that 
•xhich  has  been  exercised  over  the  Catholics  of  Ireland."  S.  JOHNSON. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED  BY  M.  CAREY  AND  SON. 

1819. 


EASTERN  DISTRICT  OF  PEWMSYLVJiNlJl,  TO  wii •-. 

BE  IT  REMEMBERED,  That  on  the  sixth  day  of  March,  in  Uie^ 
(L.  S.)     forty-third  year  of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
A.  D.  1819,  Mathew  Carey,  of  the  said  District,  hath  deposited  in 
this  office  the  Title  of  a  Book,  the  right  whereof  he  claims  as  Author,  in  the 
words  following,  to  wit: 

"VindiciscHibernicje:  or,  Ireland  Vindicated:  an  Attempt  to  develop  and 
expose  a  few  of  the  multifarious  Errors  and  Falsehoods  respecting  Ireland, 
in  the  Histories  of  May,  Temple,  Whitelock,  Borlase,  Rushworth,  Clarendon, 
Cox,  Carte,  Leland,  Warner,  Macauley,  Hume,  and  others  :  particularly  in  the 
Legendary  Tales  of  the  Conspiracy  and  Pretended  Massacre  of  1641.  By 
M.Carey,  Author  of  Essays  on  Banking,  Political  Olive  Branch,  &c. 

'  The  history  of  Ireland's  unhappy  connexion  with  England,  exhibits,  from 
first  to  last,  a  detail  of  the  most  persevering,  galling,  grinding,  insulting,  anil 
systematic  oppression,  to  be  found  any  where,  except  among  the  Helots  of  Sparta  ^ 
There  is  not  a  national  feeling  that  has  not  been  insulted  and  trodden  under 
foot;  a  national  rjght^hat  has  not  been  withheld,  until  fear  forced  it  from  the 

' grasp', of  Eng-lands ; ;  <ti;  a  dt;ar  or  ancient  prejudice  that  has  not  been  violated, 
hi  that  abused  coUii'tr}'.  As  Christians,  the  people  of  Ireland  have  been  denied, 
under  penalties. and  disqualifications,  the  exercise  of  the  rites  of  the  Catholic 
rflig'i&f!,!  yetter'able for  its  antiquity;  admirable  fur  its  unity ;  and  consecrated  by 

1  th'e  belief  of  some  of  the  best  men  that  ever  breathed.  As  men,  they  have  been 
deprived  of  the  common  rights  of  British  subjects,  under  the  pretext  that 
they  were  incapable  of  enjoying  them  :  which  pretext  had  no  other  foundation 
than  their  resistance  of  oppression,  only  the  more  severe  by  being  sanctioned 
by  the  laws.  England  first  denied  them  the  means  of  improvement;  and  then 
insulted  them  -with  the  imputation  of  barbarism?  PAULDING. 

'There  is  but  little  respite  from  exasperating  oppression  and  unmerited 
cruelty.  The  eye  wanders  over  a  dreary  scene  of  desolation,  without  a  single 
point  on  which  it  can  rest.  The  heart  of  the  Philanthropist  sinks  under  a 
hopeless  despondency ;  and  passively  yields  to  the  unchristian  and  impious 
reflection,  that  the  poor  people  of  Ireland  are  a  devoted  race,  whom  Provi- 
dence has  abandoned  to  the  malignant  ingenuity  of  an  insatiable  enemy.' 

.   LAWLESS. 

'  There  is  no  instance,  even  in  the  ten  persecutions,  of  such  severity  as  that 
•which  has  been  exercised  over  tlte  Catholics  of  Ireland?  S.  JOHXSON." 

In  conformity  to  the  Act  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  intituled, 
"  An  Act  for  the  encouragement  of  learning,  by  securing  the  copies  of  maps, 
charts  and  books,  to  the  authors  and  proprietors  of  such  copies,  during  the 
times  therein  mentioned'."  And  also  to  the  Act,  entitled,  "An  Act  supple- 
mentary to  an  Act,  entitled,  'An  Act  for  the  encouragement  of  learning,  by 
securing  the  copies  of  maps,  charts,  and  books,  to  the  authors  and  proprie- 
tors of  such  copies,  during  the  times  therein  mentioned,'  and  extending  the 
benefits  thereof  to  the  arts  of  designing,  engraving,  and  etching  historical 
and  other  prints." 

D.  CALDWELL,  Clerk  of  the 

Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania 


LTPIA  B.  BAILEY,  PEISTKH. 


TO 

THOSE  SUPERIOR  SPIRITS, 

WHO  SCORN  THE  YOKE  OF 

FRAUD,  IMPOSTURE,  BIGOTRY,  AND  DELUSION ; 

WHO, 
AT  THE  SACRED  SHRINE  OF  TRUTH, 

WILL  OFFER  UP  THEIR  PREJUDICES, 
HOW  INVETERATE  SOEVER, 

WHEN  HER  BRIGHT  TORCH  ILLUMINATES  THEIR  MINDS ; 

WHO, 

POSSESSING  THE  INESTIMABLE  BLESSINGS 

OF 

THRICE-HOLY  AND  REVERED  LIBERTY, 

ACQUIRED  BY  AN  ARDUOUS  STRUGGLE  AGAINST 
A  MERE  INCIPIENT  DESPOTISM, 

AVILL  SYMPATHIZE  WITH  THOSE 

WHO  CONTENDED  ARDENTLY,  ALTHOUGH  UNSUCCESSFULLY, 

AGAINST  AS  GRIEVOUS  AN  OPPRESSION 

AS  EVER  PRESSED  TO  THE  EARTH 

A  NOBLE  AND  GENEROUS  NATION, 

WHICH  EMBARKED  IN  THE  SAME  GLORIOUS  CAUSE 


OF  ORANGE,  WILLIAM  TELL,  FAYETTE, 
HANCOCK,  ADAMS,  FRANKLIN, 


L  •       J\  1  r  .\     »  I  tj  • 


THIS  WORK  IS  DEDICATED. 


IT  IS  LIKEWISE  DEDICATED  TO 

THE  IMMORTAL  MEMORY  OF 

THE  DESMONDS,  THE  o'NIALS,  THE  o'DONNELS,  THE 

O'MOORES,  THE  PRESTONS,  THE  MOUNTGARRETS, 

THE  CASTLEHAVENS.  THE  FITZGERALDS, 

THE  SHEARESES,  THE  TONES, 

THE  EMMETTS, 

AND 

THE  MYRIADS  OF  ILLUSTRIOUS  IRISHMEN, 

WHO  SACRIFICED  LIFE  OR  FORTUNE, 

IN  THE  UNSUCCESSFUL  EFFORT  TO  EMANCIPATE  A  COUNTRY- 
ENDOWED  BY  HEAVEN 
WITH  AS  MANY  AND  AS  CHOICE  BLESSINGS 

AS  ANY  PART  OF  THE  TERRAQUEOUS  GLOBE, 

BUT,  FOR  AGES,  A  HOPELESS  AND  HELPLESS  VICTIM 
TO  A  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

TRANSCENDENTLY  PERNICIOUS. 

Philadelphia,  March  6,  1819. 


KEY  TO  THE  REFERENCES. 

To  enable  any  reader,  -who  may  feel  to  disposed,  to  verify  the  facts  and  quota- 
tions in  this -work,  I  annex  a  List  oft/ie  Authors,  -with  tlie  dates  of  the  several 
editions.  •  Having,  to  avoid  encumbering  the  bottoms  of  the  pages  -with  tedious 
repetitions  of  the  titles  of  works,  generally  referred  to  the  author's  names,  this 
list  furnishes  a  key  to  the  references. 

\  Burke.    Works  of  the  Right  Hon.  Edmund  Burke.   6  vols.  8vo.  Boston,  1807. 
j  Borlase.     History  of  the  Execrable  Irish  Rebellion.     Folio.    London,  1680. 
'  JSurnet.    Bishop  Burnet's  History  of  His  Own  Times.    2  vols.  folio.    London, 

1724. 
Burton.    History  of  the  Kingdom  of  Ireland.     By  R.  Burton.   Westminster, 

1811. 

Baker.    Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  England.     Folio.    London,  1670. 
;  Carleton.     A  Thankful  Remembrance  of  God's  Mercy.    By  George,  Bishop  of 

Chichester.     8vo.   London,  1630. 
I  Cabala.     Cabala :  Sive  Scrinia  Sacra,  Mysteries  of  State  and  Government. 

Folio.   London,  1683. 
Curry.    An  Historical  and  Critical  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  in  Ireland. 

By  John  Curry,  M.  D.     2  vols.  8vo.   Dublin,  1786. 
j  Clarendon.    History  of  the  Rebellion  and  Civil  JVars  in  England.    By  the 

Earl  of  Clarendon.     6  vols.  8vo.   Oxford,  1707. 
!  Clarendon's  I.     History  of  the  Rebellion  and  Civil  Wars  of  Ireland.     By  the 

Earl  of  Clarendon.     8vo.   London,  1720. 
'•  Clarendon's  S.  P.     State  Papers.    By  the  Earl  of  Clarendon.    2  vols.  folio. 

Oxford,  1773. 
Crawford.     History  of  Ireland,  from  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Present  Time. 

By  William  Crawford.     2  vols.  8vo.    Strabane,  1783. 
\Carte.     History  of  the  Life  of  James,  Duke  of  Ormond.  3  vols.  folio.  London, 

1736. 
\Cox.    Hibernia  Anglicana :  or  the  History  of  Ireland.    By  Richard  Cox,  Esqr. 

London,  1689. 
Navies.    Historical  Tracts.   By  Sir  John  Davies,  Attorney-General  in  Ireland. 

8vo.   Dublin,  1787. 
| Daniel.    The  Collection  of  the  History  of  England.  By  Samuel  Daniel.   Folio. 

London,  1650. 
srry.    Irish  Historical  Library.    By  William,  Lord  Bishop  of  Derry.     8vo. 

Dublin,  1724. 
^Essex.    Letters  written  by  His  Excellency  Arthur  Capel,  Earl  of  Essex,  Lord 

Lieutenant  of  Ireland.    4to.    London,  1770. 

\Frankland.    Annals  of  King  James  and  Charles  I.    Folio.   London,  1681. 
'  or  don.    History  of  Ireland,  from  the  earliest  Accounts  to  the  Union.  By  the 

Rev.  James  Gordon.    2  vols.  8vo.   London,  1806 
\Hibernica.    Harris's  Hibernica:  or,  Some  Ancient  Pieces  respecting  Ireland. 

8vo.  Dublin,  1770. 
'.Harris.     History  and  Antiquities  of  the  City  of  Dublin.    By  William  Harris. 

8vo.   London,  1776. 
fHollinshed.    Chronicles  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland.     6  vols.  4to.  Lon^ 

don,  1807. 

fume.     History  of  England.   By  David  Hume.     6  vols.  8vo.    Albany,  1816. 
[ Hume's  E.     Hume's  Essays.     2  vols.  8vo.    Philadelphia,  1817. 
^Journals.*    Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  England.    Folio. 

*  The  Irish  Journals  are  referred  to  in  page  159. 


VI  KEY  TO  THE  REFERENCES. 

King.    State  of  the  Protestants  in  Ireland,  under  the  late  King  James's 

Government.    By  Archbishop  King.     8vo.    London,  1692. 
Leland.    History  of  Ireland,  from  the  Invasion  to  the  Present  Time.   By  T. 

Leland.     4  vols.  8vo.    Philadelphia,  1774. 

Ludloto.     Memoirs  of  Edward  Lucllow,  Esqr.     3  vols.  8vo.    Vevay,  1698. 
May.     History  of  the  Parliament  of  England,  which  began  November  3, 1640. 

By  Thomas  May.     4to.    London,  1812. 
Memoirs.    Memoirs  of  the  History  of  Ireland,  from  the  Restoration.    8vo. 

London,  1774. 
Mountmorres.     History  of  the  Principal  Transactions  of  the  Irish  Parliament. 

By  Lord  Mountmorres.     2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1792. 

Macauley.    History  of  England.   By  Catharine  Macauley.    9  vols.  4to.    Lon- 
don, 1766. 

Jfalson.     Collection  of  the  Affairs  of  State.     2  vols.  folio.    London,  1682. 
Ormond.    Collection  of  Original  Papers  and  Letters  belonging  to  the  Ormond 

Family.     2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1737- 
Orrery.    Collection  of  the  State  Letters  of  the  first  Earl  of  Orrery.    2  vols. 

8vo.   Dublin,  1743. 

Paulding.     United  States  and  England.     Philadelphia,  1816. 
Pacata  Hibernia.     History  of  the  War  in  Ireland.     By  Sir  George  Carew. 

3  vols.  4to.    Dublin,  1810. 
Ploioden.     Historical  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,  from  the  Invasion  to  the 

Union.     6  vols.  8vo.    Philadelphia,  1805. 

Petty.     Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland.    By  William  Petty     12mo.  Lond.  1691. 
Parliamentary  History.     Parliamentary  or  Constitutional  History  of  England. 

24  vols.  8vo.  London,  1762. 
Pickering    Statutes  at  Large,  from  Magna  Charta  to  the  End  of  the  Eleventh 

Parliament  of  Great  Britain.    By  Darby  Pickering.    London,  1762. 
Perrot.     Government  of  Ireland  under  Sir  John  Perrot.    12mo.  London,  1626. 
Robbing.     An  Exact  Abridgment  of  all  the  Irish  Statutes.    4to.  Dublin,  1736. 
Rush-worth.    Historical  Collection  of  Private  Passages  of  State.    8  vols  folio. 

London. 

Mapin.    History  of  England.    By  Mr.  Rap  in.     21  vols.  8vo.    London,  1760. 
Statutes.    Collection  of  all  the  Statutes  now  in  Use.     Folio.    Dublin,  1678. 
Spencer.    View  of  the  State  of  Ireland.    By  Edmund  Spencer.     Dublin,  1809. 
Strajford*     State  Letters  of  the  Earl  of  Strafford. 
Speed.     History  of  Great  Britain.     London,  1611. 
State  Trials.    Cobbet's  Complete  Collection  of  State  Trials,  1809. 
Smith.     Ancient  and  present  State  of  the  City  and  County  of  Cork.     By 

Charles  Smith.     2  vols.  8vo.    Dublin,  1774. 
Sydney  Papers.     Letters  and  Memorials  of  State,  in  the  Reigns  of  Queen 

Mary,  Queen  Elizabeth,   King  James,  &.c.    commonly  called  Sydney 

Papers.     2  vols.  folio.    London,  1746 

Temple.     The  Irish  Rebellion.    By  Sir  John  Temple.     Dublin,  1724. 
Thurloe.    Collection  of  State  Papers,  from  1638  to  the  Restoration.    7  vols. 

folio.    London,  1742. 
Tichbourne.    Letter  of  Sir  Henry  Tichbourne  to  his  Lady,  of  the  Siege  of 

Tredagh.    Appended  to  Temple's  History.   Dublin,  1724. 
Warner.    History  of  the  Rebellion  and  Civil  War  of  Ireland.    By  Ferdinando 

Warner.    4to.    London,  1768. 

Whitelock.     Memorials  of  English  Affairs.     Folio.    London,  1682. 
Warwick.     Memoirs  of  the  lieign  of  King  Charles  I.   By  Sir  Philip  Warwick. 

8vo.    London,  1703. 
Ware.     Antiquities  and  History  of  Ireland.    By  Sir  James  Ware.    Folio. 

London,  1705. 

*  This  work  I  could  not  procure,  and  have  quoted  it  at  second-hand  from 
Dr.  Curry. 


Having  two  vacant  pages  here,  I  have  judged  it  would  be 
acceptable  to  the  reader  to  present  him  with  some  bold  viervs 
of  the  subject  embraced  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  vindication, 
taken  from  high  authority :  I  mean  the  conduct  of  the  Pro- 
testant ascendency,  and  the  character  and  tendency  of  the 
execrable  code  "  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery" 

"  Ithink^  lean  hardly  overrate  the  malignity  of  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Protestant  ascendency,  as  they  affect  Ireland"* 

"  No  country,  I  believe,  since  the  world  began,  suffered  so 
much  on  account  of  religion"] 

"  We  found  the  people  heretics  and  idolaters ;  we  have,  by 
way  of  improving  their  condition,  rendered  them  slaves  and 
beggars.  They  remain  in  all  the  misfortune  of  their  old 
errors,  and  all  the  superadded  misery  of  their  recent  punish- 
ment."\. 

"  They  divided  the  nation  into  two  distinct  parties,  without 
common  interest,  sympathy,  or  connexion.  One  of  these  bodies 
•was  to  possess  all  the  franchises,  all  the  property,  all  the  edu- 
cation. The  other  was  to  be  composed  of  drarvers  of  w^ater 
and  cutters  of  turf  for  them."§ 

"  Every  measure  was  pleasing  and  popular,  just  in  propor- 
tion as  it  tended  to  harass  and  ruin  a  set  of  people  -who  were 
looked  upon  as  enemies  to  God  and  man;  and  indeed  as  a  race  of 
bigoted  savages,  rvho  were  a  disgrace  to  human  nature  itself"^ 

The  code  against  the  Roman  Catholics  "  was  a  machine  of 
wise  and  elaborate  contrivance  ;  and  as  well  fitted  for  the  op- 
pression, impoverishment,  and  degradation  of  a  people,  and  the 
debasement  in  them  of  human  nature  itself,  as  ever  proceeded 
from  the  perverted  ingenuity  of  man."5| 

"  To  render  men  patient  under  a  deprivation  of  all  the  rights 
of  human  nature,  every  thing  .which  could  give  them  a  know- 
ledge or  feeling  of  those  rights  was  rationally  forbidden.  To 
render  humanity  fit  to  be  insulted,  it  was  Jit  that  it  should  be 
degraded."** 

*  Burke,  V.  232.  f  Idem,  213.  ^.Idem,  211. 

§  Idem,  III.  452.  ||  Idem,  473.  ^  Idem,  495. 

**  Idem,  438. 


"  These  rebellions  were  not  produced  by  toleration,  but  by 
persecution  ;  they  arose  not  from  just  and  mild  government, 
but  from  the  most  unparalleled  oppression"* 

"  Let  three  millions  of  people  but  abandon  all  that  they  and 
their  ancestors  have  been  taught  to  believe  sacred,  and  for- 
swear it  publicly,  in  terms  the  most  degrading,  scurrilous,  and 
indecent,  for  men  of  integrity  and  virtue,  and  to  abuse  the 
whole  of  their  former  lives,  and  to  slander  the  education  they 
have  received,  and  nothing  more  is  required  of  them.  There 
is  no  system  of  folly,  or  impiety,  or  blasphemy,  or  atheism,  into 
which  they  may  not  throw  themselves,  and  which  they  may  not 
profess  openly  and  as  a  system,  consistently  with  the  enjoyment 
of  all  the  privileges  of  a  free  citizen  in  the  happiest  constitu- 
tion in  the  world."f 

"  No  condescension  was  excessive  which  could  purchase  for 
the  Protestants  of  Ireland  the  uncontrolled  indulgence  of  their 
hatred.  They  did  not  hesitate  to  fall,  like  Sampson,  beneath  the 
temple,  provided  the  same  ruin  might  become  fatal  to  their  ad- 
versaries: nor,  in  the  warmth  of  zeal  against  Popery,  did  they 
recollect  that  the  freedom  and  commerce,  which,  with  so  much 
solicitude,  they  rejected,  might  not  perhaps  appear  equally 
unacceptable  to  their  children.  After  having  hazarded  the 
possession  of  every  object  that  can  make  life  precious,  to  avoid 
the  probability  of  slavery,  they  shaped  for  themselves  a  bondage 
ivhich  the  most  hardy  tyrant  could  scarcely  venture  to  propose; 
and  resigned,  by  an  "  awful  interdict,"  every  intercourse  with 
the  rest  of  mankind,  whilst,  in  the  narrow  compass  which  re- 
mained, they  might  wanton  in  the  unconstrained  enjoyment  of 
revenge.  Content  to  convert  their  country  into  one  vast  prison, 
if  they  could  find  within  its  bosom  ajdungeon  still  more  hideous 
for  their  unhappy  captives. "\ 

*  Burke,  V.  220.  f  Idem,  242. 

t  Review  of  some  Interesting  Periods  of  Irish  History,  36. 


TO  most  readers  it  will  probably  appear  ex- 
traordinary, and  a  work  of  supererogation,  that, 
in  a  country  and  an  age  so  remote  from  the  scene 
and  the  era  of  the  events  which  are  discussed  in 
this  vindication,  it  should  be  deemed  either  proper 
or  necessary  to  investigate  the  subjects  it  em- 
braces. The  reasons  are  powerful,  and  fully 
justify  the  undertaking. 

The  history  of  Ireland,  as  stated  and  proved 
in  the  body  of  this  work,  is  almost  one  solid  mass 
of  falsehood  and  imposture,  erected,  particularly 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  on  the  basis  of 
fraud  and  perjury ; — fraud  and  perjury  so  obvious, 
so  stupid,  and  so  flagitious,  that,  to  the  most 
superficial  observer,  it  must  be  a  subject  of  inex- 
pressible astonishment  how  it  ever  gained  cur- 
rency. 

Nevertheless,  from  such  foul  and  polluted 
sources  alone,  the  knowledge  of  Irish  history  is 
derived  by  nine-tenths  of  those  who  have  conde- 
scended to  study  it :  and,  though  it  may  appear 
extravagant,  it  is  nevertheless  a  serious  truth,  that 

2 


X  PREFACE. 

a  large  portion  even  of  those  who  pride  them- 
selves on  their  literary  acquirements,  are  almost 
as  ignorant  of  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  from  the 
twelfth  to  the  eighteenth  century,  as  they  are  of 
those  of  the  Arabians  or  Japanese.  They  are,  in 
fact,  in  a  worse  state.  With  respect  to  the  history 
of  the  Arabians  and  Japanese,  they  are  barely 
ignorant :  but,  with  respect  to  Ireland,  almost  all 
they  know  is  whoEy  untrue.  They  give  full  faith 
and  confidence  to  some  of  the  most  extravagant 
and  romantic  stories  that  ever  were  ushered  on 
the  world,  to  delude  and  deceive  mankind,  under 
the  prostituted  name  of  histories. 

The  terrific  tales  that  are  recorded  of  the 
events  of  the  civil  war  of  1641,  have  sowed,  and 
still  continue  to  sow,  a  copious  seed  of  the  most 
vulgar  and  rancorous  prejudices  in  the  mind  of 
man  against  his  fellow  man,  which  have  sprout- 
ed forth  with  most  pernicious  luxuriance,  and 
soured  in  his  breast  the  sweet  milk  of  human 
kindness  towards  those  with  whom  he  is  in  daily 
habits  of  association.  These  prejudices  are  too 
generally  prevalent  in  the  British  dominions. 

In  Ireland,  they  have  produced  the  most  baleful 
consequences,  and  still  afford  some  sort  of  coun- 
tenance to  the  continuance  of  the  remnant  of 
an  odious  code  of  laws,  by  which,  as  appeal's  in 
Chapter  XXI.  of  this  work,*  rapine,  cruelty,  and 
demoralization  have  been  legally  systematized, 

*  Page  473. 


PREFACE.  XI 

and  every  principle  of  honour,  honesty,  good 
faith,  justice,  and  sound  policy,  violated. 

Many  of  these  prejudices  have  been  transplant- 
ed from  their  native  soil  by  emigrants,  and  have 
taken  root  in  this  country,  notwithstanding  the 
general  liberality  of  the  age.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  their  range  is  confined,  and  their  influence 
inconsiderable.  Nevertheless,  the  erroneous  im- 
pressions respecting  Irish  affairs,  are,  we  repeat, 
universal  here,  from  the  corrupt  sources  whence 
her  heart-rending  story  is  derived. 

Should  it,  therefore,  be  asked,  why  I  have 
taken  the  trouble  to  explore  the  musty  vo- 
lumes whence  I  have  drawn  the  materials  for 
this  work  ?  I  reply,  I  have  had  three  motives : 
the  pleasure  of  detecting  and  exposing  fraud  and 
imposture ;  the  vindication  of  my  native  coun- 
try ;  and  the  fond  hope,  that  there  are  in  the 
United  States  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  liberal  and  enlightened  men,  who  only  require 
to  have  the  fair  and  holy  form  of  Truth  placed 
before  their  eyes,  properly  authenticated,  to  in- 
duce them  to  clasp  her  to  their  bosoms.  For 
such  I  write:  and  there  is  a  large  fund  of 
consolation  and  encouragement  to  be  derived 
from  the  consideration,  that  I  address  a  public 
which  has  not  any  sordid  motives  of  self-interest 
to  impel  it  to  uphold  the  cause  of  imposture. 
There  is  here  no  Protestant,  nor  Presbyterian, 
nor  Quaker,  nor  Catholic,  nor  Universalist  ascen- 
dency, whose  power  is  built  on  the  pestiferous 
basis  of  fraud,  perjury,  and  misrepresentation. 


Xll  PREFACE. 

Tliis  is  an  inestimable  advantage,  which  writers 
on  this  subject,  in  the  British  dominions,  cannot 
enjoy  to  the  same  extent.  The  power,  influence, 
and  ascendency  of  the  "sacred  cast,"  the  Irish 
oligarchs  who  uphold  the  despotism  of  a  domi- 
nant and  domineering  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ment, which,  to  compensate  them  for  their  ser- 
vices, ensures  them  the  undisturbed  possession 
of  all  the  honours  and  emoluments  of  society, 
would  fall  prostrate  at  the  touch  of  the  talisman 
of  truth,  as  the  gorgeous  fabric  of  Aladdin's 
palace  fell  at  the  touch  of  the  wand  of  the 
genius :  and  therefore,  how  disgraceful  soever  it 
may  be  to  human  nature,  it  is  not  wonderful, 
considering  the  weakness,  the  wickedness,  and 
the  selfishness  of  mankind,  that  so  much  pains 
should  have  been  and  are  taken  to  stifle  the 
voice  of  injurious  truth,  and  to  perpetuate  the 
reign  of  productive  and  lucrative  imposture. 

Some  gentlemen  have  exclaimed  against  this 
undertaking,  as  highly  pernicious,  and  calculated 
to  revive  ancient  prejudices  and  excite  hostility 
between  different  denominations  of  Christians, 
and  between  the  natives  of  the  two  British  islands. 
Charity  induces  me  to  hope,  that  those  who  raise 
these  objections  are  deceived,  not  deceivers, — 
that  they  believe  what  they  profess.  But  that 
their  impressions,  if  ingenuous,  arise  from  a  very 
contracted  view  of  the  subject,  may  be  made  as 
clear  as  any  axiom  in  morals  or  politics. 

There  might  be  some  plausibility  in  these  ob- 
jections, had  the  frauds  and  falsehoods  I  have 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

undertaken  to  expose  and  refute,  sunk  into  obli- 
vion, and  their  influence  wholly  ceased  to  operate. 
But  they  have  unfortunately  survived  the  causes 
which  gave  them  birth;  become  engrafted  in 
history  ;  taken  complete  possession  of  the  public 
mind ;  and  are  almost  as  thoroughly  and  as  uni- 
versally believed,  as  the  best  established  facts  in 
the  annals  of  the  world.  Can  the  man,  then, 
who  honestly  endeavours  to  demolish  the  fabric 
of  deception,  arid,  by  this  demolition,  eradicate 
the  angry  passions  which  it  has  engendered,  be 
regarded  otherwise  than  as  engaged  in  a  laudable 
warfare, — the  warfare  of  holy  truth  against  impi- 
ous imposture  ?  Do  not  those  who  labour  to  pre- 
vent the  success  of  such  an  undertaking,  uphold 
the  cause  of  fraud  and  delusion  ? 

Having  stated  the  motives  to  this  undertaking, 
I  submit  to  the  consideration  of  the  reader  the 
several  points  which  I  have  laboured,  and  I  trust 
successfully,  to  establish.  That  they  are  of  vital 
importance,  and  that,  if  proved,  they  invalidate  a 
large  portion  of  the  history  of  Ireland,  as  narrated 
by  Temple,  Borlase,  Carte,  Warner,  Leland, 
Hume,  and  others,  will  appear  obvious,  on  a 
slight  perusal.  This  consideration  entitles  them 
to  a  sober,  serious  examination. 

It  is  not,  by  any  means,  pretended  that  they 
are  discussed  systematically,  in  the  order  in  which 
they  are  here  arranged.  The  proofs  are  dispersed 
throughout  the  work,  and,  notwithstanding  their 
want  of  arrangement,  cannot,  I  hope,  fail  to  satisfy 
every  candid  mind, — 


XIV  PREFACE. 

I.  That  the  statement  given  by  Temple,  Cla- 
rendon, Warner,  Leland,  and  all  the  other  writers 
on  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  that  the  Irish,  for  forty 
years  previous  to  the  insurrection  of  1641,  enjoy- 
ed a  high  degree  of  peace,  security,  happiness, 
and  toleration,  is  as  base  and  shameful  a  false- 
hood as  ever  disgraced  the  pages  of  history,  and 
is  no  more  like  the  real  state  of  the  case,  than  the 
history  of  St.  George  and  the  dragon  is  like  the 
true  history  of  England.     For 

II.  That,  during  this  period,  there  was  hardly 
a  Catholic  in  the  kingdom  who  was  secure  in  the 
possession  of  his  property,  or  in  the  exercise  of 
his  religion.     And 

III.  That,  during  the  same  period,  the  Irish 
were  plundered  by  the  government  -of  nearly  a 
million  of  acres  of  their  lands,  in  the  most  wicked, 
unjust  and  perfidious  manner ;  and  by  rapacious 
individuals,  to  an  extent  beyond  calculation. 

IV.  That  O'Conally's  pretended  discovery  of  a 
conspiracy,  is  one  unvaried  strain  of  perjury. 

V.  That  there  was  no  conspiracy  for  a  general 
insurrection  in  Ireland,  on  the  23d  October,  1641. 

VI.  That  the  basis  on  which  rests  the  story  of 
the  pretended  bloody  massacre  by  the  Irish,  is  a 
tissue  of  the  most  gross  and  palpable  falsehood 
and  perjury.     On  the  contrary, 

VII.  That  the  massacres  perpetrated  on  the 
Irish,  by  St.  Leger,  Monroe,  Tichbourne,  Hamil- 
ton, Grenville,  Ireton,  and  Cromwell,  were  as 
savage,  as  ferocious,  as  brutal,  and  as  bloody,  as 
the  horrible  feats  of  Cortes  or  Pizarro,  Attila  or 


PREFACE.  XV 

Genghis  Khan  ;  and  particularly,  that  history  pre- 
sents nothing  more  shocking  or  detestable  than 
Ireton's  butchery  in  the  cathedral  of  Cashell,  and 
Cromwell's  in  Drogheda. 

VIII.  That  the  Irish  government  issued  a  blood- 
thirsty and  detestable  order  to  slaughter  "  all  men 
able  to  bear  arms,  in  places  where  the  insurgents 
were  harboured,"  without  any  discrimination  be- 
tween the  innocent  and  guilty;  that  the  Long 
Parliament   enacted   an  ordinance,   "  forbidding 
quarter  to  be  given  to  any  Irishman  taken  pri- 
soner in  England;"  and  that  those  cruel  and 
wicked  edicts  were  carried  into  operation. 

IX.  That  the  scheme  of  a  general  extirpation 
of  the  Irish,  as  general  a  confiscation  of  their 
estates,  and  a  new  plantation  of  the  country,  was 
most  seriously  entertained,  and  for  some  time 
acted  upon,  by  the  Irish  rulers  and  their  officers. 

X.  That  the  idea  of  a  cessation  of  hostilities, 
whereby  the  Irish  might  escape  from  this  pro- 
jected plan  of  extirpation,  excited  as  universal  an 
alarm  in  England  and  Ireland,  as  if  the  established 
religion  and  government  were  to  be  wholly  over- 
turned. 

XI.  That  the  Irish  government  left  nothing 
barbarous,  cruel,  or  wicked,  undone,  to  goad  the 
Irish  to  resistance,  and  to  extend  the  insurrection 
throughout  the  kingdom,  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
riching themselves  and  their  friends  by  confisca- 
tions. 


XVI  PREFACE. 

XII.  That  if  the  Irish  insurgents  of  1641  deserv- 
ed to  be  stigmatized  as  traitors  and  rebels,  then 
were  the  English  revolutionists  of  1688,  the  Ame- 
rican of  1776,  and  the  French  of  1789,  traitors 
and  rebels  of  the  very  worst  possible  kind  ;  as 
their  grievances   bore  no  more  proportion  to 
those  of  the  Irish,  than  the  gentle  Schuylkill  to 
the  impetuous  Mississippi,  the  hill  of  Howth  to 
the  peak  of  Teneriffe,  or  lake  Erie  to  the  Atlantic 
ocean. 

XIII.  That  there  is  a  striking  contradiction  be- 
tween the  facts  and  inductions  of  Carte,  Warner, 
Leland,  and  nearly  all  the  other  writers  of  Irish 
history. 

XIV.  That,  in  the  Anglo-Hibernian  histories  of 
Ireland,  there  is  so  much  error  and  falsehood, 
established  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt  or 
denial,  that  they  are  utterly  unworthy  of  credit. 

XV.  That  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  Bri- 
tish dominions,  was  characterized  by  a  succes- 
sion of  forged  plots,  resting  on  the  basis  of  fla- 
grant perjuries,  arid  calculated  to  sacrifice  the 
lives  and  property  of  the  innocent,  and  enrich 
malefactors  of  the  worst  kind. 

XVI.  That  the  Irish  code  of  laws,  whose  pre- 
tended object  was  "to  prevent  the  growth  of 
Popery,"  was  intended  to  gratify  all  the  basest 
passions  of  human  nature,  in  violation  of  public 
faith,  honour,  justice,  and  humanity  ;  and  that  it 
organized  as  tyrannical  an  invasion  of  liberty,  and 


PREFACE.  XV11 

as  piratical  a  depredation  on  property,  and  was 
covered  by  as  base  a  cloak  of  hypocrisy,  as  the 
annals  of  the  world  can  produce. 


I  fondly  flatter  myself,  I  repeat,  that  the  proofs 
I  have  adduced  fully  establish  the  whole  of  these 
points.  But  should  I  be  too  sanguine  in  this  ex- 
pectation, I  still  trust  that  I  shall  secure  the  assent 
of  liberal  and  ingenuous  minds  to  all  the  essential 
ones.  Against  the  fortresses  of  fraud  and  impos- 
ture, I  have  brought  a  battery  of  eight-arid-forty 
pounders,  which  can  hardly  fail  to  demolish  them. 
The  arsenals  of  enemies,  some  of  them  most 
envenomed,  have  furnished  all  the  cannon.  The 
laborious  and  unwearied  research  for  them,  and 
their  mere  disposition  and  arrangement,  are  all 
the  merit  I  claim. 

It  would  be  a  most  fastidious  and  hypercritical 
delicacy,  that  should  preclude  a  writer  from  fairly 
stating  the  merits  of,  and  obviating  objections  to, 
his  materials,  or  the  authorities  on  which  he  relies 
to  support  his  narrative,  if  he  write  history ;  or 
his  discussions,  if  he  investigate  historical  facts. 
I  neither  feel  myself,  nor  fear  in  my  readers,  any 
such  delicacy.  I  therefore  treat  on  the  materials 
of  this  publication,  as  I  should  on  those  of  any 
other  whatsoever. 

I  feel  confident  that  there  is  probably  no 
historical  work  extant,  that  rests  on  stronger 
grounds.  I  am  not  aware  of  a  single  fact  of 
importance,  throughout  the  whole,  that  is  not 

2* 


XV111  PREFACE. 

supported,  not  only  by  reference  to,  but,  what  is 
far  more  important,  quotations  from,  indisputable 
authorities, — authorities  generally  hostile  to  the 
cause  I  espouse. 

Dr.  Curry,  in  his  invaluable  work,  the  "  Histo- 
rical .and  Critical  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  in 
Ireland,"  has  set  a  laudable  example  in  this  depart- 
ment of  literature.  He  has,  in  most  cases,  esta- 
blished his  facts  by  copious  quotations.  I  have 
not  merely  followed,  but  have  gone  beyond  his 
example.  I  have  been  more  general  in  my  quo- 
tations; and  have  but  slenderly  availed  myself 
of  the  Irish  writers :  whereas  a  large  portion  of 
his  authorities  are  of  that  description;  and,  al- 
though they  are  in  themselves  perfectly  sound  and 
unexceptionable,  yet  they  are  liable  to  cavil,  for 
which  I  was  determined  to  afford  no  pretext  what- 
ever. On  such  a  question,  Irish  authorities  would 
not  have  sufficient  weight  with  minds  devoured 
by  prejudice ;  and  would  come  before  the  world 
in  a  questionable  form,  and  subject  to  suspicions 
of  partiality.  I  have  therefore  almost  wholly 
rejected  them  throughout ;  so  that,  jn  about  five 
hundred  quotations,  there  are  not  a  dozen  from 
writers  of  that  class :  and,  in  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant chapters  of  the  book,  that  on  the  subject 
of  the  massacres  and  murders  perpetrated  on  the 
Irish,  I  have  not  made  use  of  a  single  one  of  their 
advocates.  In  this  respect,  I  believe  the  work 
rests  on  the  most  impregnable  foundation ;  and 
am  persuaded  no  similar  instance  ever  occurred. 


PREFACE.  XIX 

My  heart  swells  with  a  glow  of  satisfaction 
and  pride,  that  I  can  come  before  the  critical 
world,  with  a  defence  of  Ireland,  resting  on  the 
names  of  Spencer,  Davies,  Coke,  Temple,  Borlase, 
Clarendon,  Rush  worth,  Nalson,  Carte,  Warner, 
Leland,  Baker,  Orrery,  ^c.  nearly  all  of  whom 
were  open  or  concealed  enemies  of  that  country 
and  its  unfortunate  inhabitants.  It  may  seem 
extraordinary,  that  there  is  on  the  list  the  name 
of  the  wretched  Temple,  who,  as  I  have  shown,* 
was  so  far  ashamed  of  his  own  spurious  work, 
that  he  endeavoured,  but  in  vain,  to  suppress  it : 
but  it  is  the  peculiar  felicity  of  this  undertaking, 
that  it  may  be  fairly  said  to  this  father  of  all  the 
imposture, 

"  By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  condemned." 

for,  were  all  the  other  authorities,  cited  in  this 
work,  totally  annihilated,  there  is  enough  in  this 
legendist  to  demolish  the  fabric  of  fraud  and  de- 
ception, in  the  erection  of  which,  so  much  time, 
and  such  varied  talents,  have  been  prostituted, 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  past. 

Having  stated  the  motives  to  this  undertaking ; 
the  points  I  have  endeavoured  to  prove ;  and  the 
materials  I  have  employed,  it  remains  to  render 
some  account  of  the  execution  of  the  plan :  and 
here  I  confess  I  feel  myself  open  to  censure, 
from  which  I  shall  not  attempt  to  shrink.  The 
work  is  in  a  very  imperfect  state  indeed ;  and 

*  Page  391. 


XX  PREFACE. 

has  not  had  a  due  share  of  attention  bestowed  on 
it.  Whether,  by  any  degree  of  time  and  labour, 
I  could  have  rendered  it  complete  and  perfect, 
I  am  very  doubtful.  But  this  is  certain,  that  I 
might  have  made  it  far  less  imperfect,  had  I  de- 
voted more  time  to  it.  The  great  body  of  it  has 
been  written  at  night,  when  the  pressure  of  usual 
avocations  had  subsided ;  and  next  day  hastily 
committed  to  the  press,  under  all  the  consequent 
disadvantages. 

This  statement  is  the  offspring,  not  of  ostenta- 
tion, but  of  a  due  regard  to  truth,  and  in  the  faint 
hope  that  it  will  operate  as  some  sort  of  apology 
for  the  manifest  imperfections  of  the  work.  I 
am  not,  however,  unaware,  that,  in  strict  justice, 
this  avowal  may  be  considered  as  rendering  those 
imperfections  more  unpardonable ;  as  it  may  with 
truth  be  said,  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  present 
his  productions  to  the  world,  without  due  prepa- 
ration ;  that  it  is  disrespectful,  and  deserves  severe 
censure :  in  a  word,  that  the  haste  with  which 
this  vindication  has  been  composed  and  hurried 
through  the  press,  so  far  from  being  an  extenu- 
ation, is  an  aggravation  of  the  offence. 

The  correctness  of  these  objections  cannot  be 
denied.  But  let  it  sink  deep  into  the  mind  of 
the  reader,  that,  whatever  I  may  suffer  from  the 
justice,  or  even  the  utmost  rigour,  of  criticism, 
is  unimportant,  compared  with  what  I  feel  from 
the  convictions  of  my  own  mind.  I  stand  self- 
condemned.  That  I  have  not  done  justice  to 


PREFACE.  XXI 

myself,  in  presenting  the  work  to  the  public  in 
such  an  imperfect  state,  is  of  little  importance. 
This  might  lower  the  sails  of  my  vanity  :  but  it 
could  affect  me  alone.  But,  having  undertaken 
the  delightful  task  of  vindicating  the  country 
of  Swift,  Parnell,  Goldsmith,  Sterne,  Farquhar, 
Burke,  Flood,  Curran,  Grattan,  Montgomery,  and 
a  long  and  bright  galaxy  of  such  illustrious  cha- 
racters ;  a  country  whose  natives,  notwithstand- 
ing the  countless  blessings  bestowed  on  them  by 
Nature,  in  local  situation,  fertility  of  soil,  and 
salubrity  of  climate,  have  been  for  ages  doomed 
to  pine  in  the  most  abject  poverty,  wretchedness, 
and  idleness,  at  home ;  but  abroad,  in  every  region 
and  every  clime  of  the  known  world,  have  dis- 
played the  brightest  energies  of  the  human  cha- 
racter, in  all  the  varied  walks  of  life  ;  a  country 
which  has  furnished  almost  every  nation  in  Chris- 
tendom with  statesmen  and  warriors,  driven  from 
their  native  soil  by  lordly  despotism,  rampant 
injustice,  and  religious  intolerance  ;*  a  country 

*  Extract  from  an  unanimous  Address,  agreed  to  by  the  Fede- 
ral members  of  the  legislature  of  Maryland,  published  in  con- 
sequence of  the  Baltimore  riots. 

"  A  dependency  of  Great  Britain,  Ireland  has  long  languished 
under  oppressions  reprobated  by  humanity,  and  discountenanced 
by  just  policy.  It  would  argue  penury  of  human  feeling,  and 
ignorance  of  human  rights,  to  submit  patiently  to  those  oppres- 
sions. Centuries  have  witnessed  the  struggles  of  Ireland,  but 
with  only  partial  success.  Rebellions  and  insurrections  have 
continued,  with  but  short  intervals  of  tranquillity.  Many  of 
the  Irish,  like  the  French,  are  the  hereditary  foes-  of  Great 


XX11  PREFACE. 

which  has  produced  the  men  on  whom  the  desti- 
nies of  Europe  have  recently  depended,  in  the 
field  and  in  the  cabinet ;  a  country  the  most  ca- 
lumniated, and  among  the  most  oppressed,  in  the 
world ;  having  as  fair  a  field  to  explore  as  ever 
courted  the  exertions  of  any  writer,  in  any  age  or 
any  country,  I  most  deeply  regret,  and  sincerely 
apologize  for,  the  want  of  judgment  which  led 
me  to  appear  precipitately  before  the  public,  with- 
out that  degree  of  elaboration  which  the  impor- 
tance of  the  subject  demanded. 

Having  candidly  avowed  thus  much  with  re- 
spect to  the  execution  of  the  work,  I  trust  I 
shall  not  be  censured  for  expressing  a  hope,  that 
there  is,  in  the  object  I  have  had  in  view ;  the 
glorious  cause  I  have  undertaken ;  and  the  im- 
pregnable basis  on  which  this  vindication  rests, 
a  redeeming  virtue,  that  would  atone  for  defects 
and  imperfections  infinitely  greater  than  those  to 
be  found  in  these  pages.  He  must  be  a  most 
fastidious  epicure,  who,  when  hungry,  would  turn 
in  scorn  from  excellent  viands,  merely  because 
the  traiteur  had  been  injudicious  or  inexpert  in 
the  cookery:  and  the  reader  would  be  equally 
injudicious,  who  should  reject  a  work  which 

Britain.  America  has  opened  her  arms  to  the  oppressed  of  all 
nations.  No  people  have  availed  themselves  of  the  asylum 
with  more  alacrity,  or  in  greater  numbers,  than  the  Irish. 
High  is  the  meed  of  praise,  rich  the  reward,  rvhich  Irishmen 
have  merited  from  the  gratitude  of  America.  AS  HEROES 
AND  STATESMEN,  THEY  HONOUR  THEIR 
ADOPTED  COUNTRY." 


PREFACE.  XX1U 

shed  the  broad  glare  of  truth  on  an  important 
and  much-misrepresented  period  of  history,  mere- 
ly because,  from  want  of  skill,  or  want  of  leisure, 
or  perhaps  both,  the  writer  had  failed  in  the 
arrangement  of  his  materials. 

Some  readers  may  complain,  that  the  quota- 
tions are  too  numerous ;  that  they  disfigure  the 
appearance  of  the  work ;  and  unnecessarily  en- 
hance its  volume :  and  some  may  be  unjust 
enough  to  believe  that  the  latter  is  one  of  the 
objects  of  the  writer. 

Whoever  entertains  this  idea  must  be  grossly 
ignorant  of  the  nature  of  writing.  He  has  never 
tried  the  experiment.  The  search  for  some  of 
those  passages,  which  do  not  exceed  three  or  four 
lines,  has  cost  more  time  and  labour  than  have 
been  employed  in  writing  five  or  six  pages.  In 
fact,  the  time  wasted  in  examining  the  dry  and 
dreary  details  of  a  soporific  volume  of  Thurloe's 
State  Papers,  of  eight  or  nine  hundred  pages, 
where  hardly  a  single  fact  was  to  be  gleaned, 
would  have  sufficed  for  writing  a  chapter  of  ori- 
ginal matter. 

In  some  cases,  however,  I  have  probably 
given  more  quotations  than  were  necessary :  but 
this  error  is  venial.  Those  who  are  satisfied 
with  one  or  two  authorities,  out  of  six  or  eight, 
may  pass  over  the  remainder :  whereas  the  con- 
trary and  common  error,  of  affording  slender 
support  to  what  we  are  ourselves,  and  suppose 
others,  convinced  of.  is  a  vital  one.  A  single 


XXIV  PREFACE. 

instance  of  the  latter  is  productive  of  more  inju- 
rious consequences  than  twenty  of  the  former. 

For  the  exuberance  of  quotations,  an  adequate 
reason  can  be  given.  In  the  gross  adulteration 
of  Irish  history,  which  we  have  had  occasion  so 
often  to  present  to  the  reader,  it  requires  no 
ordinary  weight  of  proof,  to  make  an  impression 
on  the  public  mind,  on  points  wherein  error  is 
so  gross,  truth  so  little  known,  means  of  correct 
information  so  limited,  and  prejudice  so  inve- 
terate. 

Of  what  avail  would  it  be,  had  I  written  a 
narrative  of  the  events  discussed  in  this  work, 
even  with  a  long  series  of  references  to  my 
authorities  ?  Who,  to  verify  the  facts,  would 
take  the  pains  to  explore  Temple,  and  Borlase, 
and  Rushworth,  and  Baker,  and  Clarendon,  and 
Carte,  and  Leland,  and  Warner,  and  so  many 
other  writers  whom  I  have  quoted  ?  Not  one 
in  a  hundred.  The  facts  would  be  regarded  as 
resting  on  the  writer's  mere  ipse  dixit ;  and  would 
wholly  fail  to  produce  the  effect  intended,  and 
which  I  trust  the  work  will  produce.  But  lives 
there  a  man  who  will  dare  to  refuse  his  assent, 
when  I  quote  Ludlow,  for  the  butchery  at  Cash- 
el  ;  the  marquis  of  Ormond,  and  Cromwell  him- 
self, for  that  at  Drogheda ;  Borlase,  for  the  star- 
vation of  "7,000  of  the  vulgar  sort,"  by  one 
regiment ;  Rushworth,  for  the  bloodthirsty  decree 
of  the  Long  Parliament,  "  to  give  no  quarter  to 
Irish  prisoners;"  and  the  lords  justices  them- 


PREFACE.  XXV 

selves,  for  the  murderous  order  to  "  kill  every 
man  able  to  bear  arms,  in  those  places  where 
rebels  were  harboured  ?" 

On  this  subject  I  desire  to  be  distinctly  under- 
stood. Though  literary  reputation,  to  every  man 
who  employs  his  pen  for  the  public,  must  be 
a  desirable  object ;  yet  I  should  be  more  highly 
gratified,  were  this  vindication  a  mere  collection 
of  "  shreds  and  patches,"  without  a  single  page 
of  my  own  composition,  and  in  which  my  sole 
merit  would  arise  from  the  research  for,  and 
arrangement  of,  facts,  forcing  conviction  on  the 
reader's  mind,  than  if  it  united  the  manly  bold- 
ness of  Tacitus  with  the  elaborate  elegance  of 
Gibbon,  (if  those  qualities  be  not  incompatible) 
but  were  as  deceptious  and  fraudulent  as  Cla- 
rendon's account  of  the  state  of  Ireland  pre- 
vious to  1641,  or  Hume's  of  the  insurrection  of 
that  year.  Wretched,,  indeed,  and  meriting  pity 
and  contempt,  must  be  the  man  who  could  hesi- 
tate for  a  moment  between  the  two  results  of  his 
labours. 

In  following  the  track  of  such  an  indefatigable 
writer  as  Curry,  who  has  almost  exhausted  the 
sickening  subject,  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to 
avoid  using  the  same  materials,  and  frequently 
making  analogous  dispositions  of,  and  deductions 
from,  them.  This  is  the  fate  of  every  writer  who 
travels  over  ground  already  beaten.  A  man  who 
writes  history,  or  discusses  historical  subjects,  of 
remote  periods,  is  no  further  worthy  of  credit, 


XXVI  PREFACE. 

than  as  he  narrates  facts  already  recorded.  Inven- 
tion and  fraud  are  synonymous  terms.  All  that 
remain  for  modern  writers,  who  treat  of  remote 
events,  are,  laborious  research :  judicious  selection 
of  materials ;  fidelity  of  quotation  ;  and  correct 
induction.  How  far  I  have  succeeded  with  the 
second  and  fourth,  the  world  will  decide  :  but  to 
the  first  and  third  I  fearlessly  lay  claim.  I  have 
spared  neither  pains  nor  expense  in  procuring  the 
necessary  materials,  nor  time  nor  labour  in  their 
examination.  Almost  every  book  in  the  Philadel- 
phia library,  bearing  on  this  subject,  (and  the 
number  is  immense)  I  have  examined;  and  more- 
over procured  many,  which  it  does  not  contain, 
from  New  York,  Baltimore,  and  Burlington.* 

*  It  is  not  pretended,  that  I  have  read  all  the  books  I 
have  quoted.  Half  a  life  would  hardly  be  adequate  to  this 
purpose.  No  man  of  business  could  read  Thurloe  and  Rush- 
worth,  amounting  to  fifteen  ponderous  folios,  in  less  than  two 
or  three  years.  But  four-fifths  of  the  books  to  which  I  have 
referred,  and  many  which  were  too  barren  to  afford  a  single 
passage,  I  have  examined  page  by  page.  Others  have  been 
more  slightly  searched ;  and  of  some,  only  certain  volumes,  on 
cotemporaneous  events.  Those  accustomed  to  investigations 
of  this  kind,  know  that  a  single  glance  will  frequently  suf- 
fice to  ascertain  whether  a  page  be  likely  to  furnish  suitable 
matter.  This  has  been  remarkably  the  case  with  Thurloe, 
Rushworth  and  Clarendon.  Temple,  Carte,  Warner,  Leland, 
and  some  others,  who  have  furnished  the  principal  part  of  my 
materials,  required  a  closer  examination,  which  they  have 
accordingly  received.  But  of  the  matter  suitable  for  my  pur- 
pose, even  in  these  works,  a  large  portion  must  have  wholly 
escaped  me,  from  the  rapidity  of  my  researches.  Moreover, 
of  my  selections,  I  have  not  been  able  to  avail  myself  of  more 
than  one-fourth  part,  in  consequence  of  the  limits  I  prescribed 
to  this  work. 


PREFACE.  XXVli 

On  the  subject  of  fidelity  of  quotation,  I  wish 
to  state,  that  I  have  been  as  careful  as  human 
frailty  would  admit,  to  avoid  errors  :  but,  in  the 
very  unusual  number  of  authorities,  some  may 
have  crept  in.  If  this  be  the  case,  I  am  satisfied 
they  are  few  and  unimportant.  Should  any  be 
discovered,  I  shall  regard  the  communication  of 
them  as  a  signal  favour. 

I  have  been  led  to  notice  slightly,  and  merely 
as  connected  with  the  subject,  some  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Long  Parliament  and  of  Charles  I. 
In  this,  as  in  all  other  cases  of  civil  war,  there 
were  egregious  and  multifarious  "  faults  on  both 
sides,"  some  of  which  truth  has  called  upon  me 
to  state.  Zealous  friends  of  free  government, 
who  have  been  nurtured  in  idolatry  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  which  they  regard  as  immaculate,  will 
hardly  pardon  a  writer  who  holds  them  up  to 
execration,  for  their  "  no  quarter"  ordinance  ;  for 
their  rancorous  opposition  to  a  cessation  of  arms  ; 
and  for  their  devouring  rage  for  the  extermination 
of  the  Irish,  and  the  confiscation  of  their  estates : 
and  the  idolaters  of  the  "  royal  martyr"  will 
equally  denounce  me,  for  daring  to  expose  his 
base  perfidy  to  the  Irish.  This  result  has  been 
foreseen,  and  is  disregarded.  They  may  censure 
and  abuse  as  much  as  they  will :  but  volumes  of 
such  censure  and  abuse  will  not  disprove  a  single 
fact. 

When  this  work  was  about  two-thirds  printed, 
I  met  with  a  most  excellent  history  of  Ireland,  by 


XXV111  PREFACE. 

John  Lawless.  Esqr.  published  anno  1814,  where- 
in the  writer  defends  his  country's  character  and 
rights,  in  an  unusually  bold,  eloquent,  masterly, 
and  overwhelming  manner.  Having  derived  his 
materials  from  the  same  sources  as  Curry,  sources 
to  which  I  also  have  had  recourse,  it  is  not  won- 
derful that  there  should  frequently  be  a  sameness 
between  his  work  and  this.  I  am  gratified  to 
state,  that  there  is  a  coincidence  between  his 
views  of  most  of  the  subjects,  and  those  I  have 
taken,  particularly  with  respect  to  the  rapacity 
and  plunder  of  James  I.  I  regret,  however,  to 
find,  that  he  has  very  slightly  passed  over  the  two 
most  important  points  embraced  in  this  work: 
I  mean  the  account  of  the  pretended  general  con- 
spiracy, and  the  legends  of  the  massacre  of  1641, 
which  his  powerful  pen  could  have  so  ably  ex- 
posed, and  for  the  detection  of  which  he  must 
have  had  more  copious  materials  in  Dublin  than 
I  could  procure  in  Philadelphia.  This  elegant 
and  interesting  history  ought  to  be  in  the  posses- 
sion of  every  Irishman  who  feels  for  the  honour 
and  glory  of  his  country. 

The  strong  language  of  reprobation,  which  I 
have  used  towards  the  English  administrations 
in  Ireland,  will  probably  excite  the  ire  of  some 
unthinking  Englishmen,  who  may  regard  it  as 
a  libel  on  their  nation.  Such  feelings  can  be 
entertained  only  by  most  illiberal  minds.  Every 
enlightened  Englishman  will  sympathize  in  the 
horrible  sufferings  of  Ireland,  and  consign  to 


PREFACE.  XXIX 

infamy  the  memory  of  those  oppressors,  whose 
rapine  and  cruelty  inflicted  so  much  misery  on  so 
fair  a  portion  of  the  globe,  and  pursued  a  system 
so  well  adapted  to  eternize  hostility  between  the 
two  nations,  and  which  had  not  a  single  feature 
calculated  to  secure  the  attachment  of  a  people 
who,  easily  alienated  by  hostility,  are  proverbially 
celebrated  for  being  as  easily  conciliated  by  kind- 
ness as  any  in  the  world. 

But  the  dreadful  scenes  exhibited  in  Ireland 
were  not  the  result  of  any  peculiarity  in  the  Eng- 
lish nation :  they  arose  from  the  relations  between 
the  two  islands.  Perhaps,  had  the  case  been 
wholly  reversed, — had  Ireland  been  the  master 
nation,  Irishmen  would  have 

"  Play'd  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven, 
As  make  e'en  angels  weep," 

and  run  riot  in  England,  as  Englishmen  have 
done  in  Ireland :  for,  if  there  be  one  truth  more 
clearly  proved  by  history  than  another,  it  is.  that 
bodies  of  men,  or  nations,  are  demons,  when  they 
have  uncontrolled  power  over  other  bodies  or 
nations.  All  the  oppressions,  the  tyrannies,  the 
rapines,  the  bloody  persecutions,  that  load  the 
polluted  and  wretched  annals  of  mankind,  bear 
the  most  irrefragable  evidence  to  this  appalling 
position. 

The  English,  for  two  hundred  years,  have  com- 
memorated, with  horror  against  the  Dutch,  the 
massacre  at  Amboyna ;  the  statement  of  the  atro- 
city of  which  bears  the  strongest  marks  of  gross 


XXX  PREFACE. 

exaggeration  and  falsehood  :  for  who  can  allow 
himself  to  believe  the  tale,  that  "the  tortured 
wretches  were  forced  to  drink  water  till  their 
bodies  were  distended  to  the  utmost  pitch,  and  then 
caused  to  disgorge  the  water,  and  the  process  re- 
peated;" that  they  "  were  burned,  from  the  feet 
upwards,  in  order  to  extort  the  confession  of  a 
conspiracy  "  that  "  the  nails  of  their  fingers  and 
toes  were  torn  off"  or,  finally,  that  "  holes  were 
made  in  their  breasts,  and  the  cavities  filled  with 
inflammable  matter?"*  No  man  of  common 
sense  can  pay  a  moment's  attention  to  it.  Yet 
this  is  the  precise  story,  as  it  stands  recorded. 
A  rancorous  hostility  prevailed  between  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  Dutch :  and  it  is  by  no  means  im- 
probable, that  the  conspiracy  charged  upon  the 
former  by  the  latter  was  real,  and  that  the  con- 
spirators were  justly  and  regularly  punished.  All 
the  rest  of  the  story,  I  repeat,  has  the  most  mani- 
fest and  palpable  appearance  of  exaggeration  and 
embellishment,  contrived  for  the  purpose  of  ren- 
dering the  Dutch  odious.  This  is  the  more  pro- 
bable, from  a  consideration  of  the  lying  spirit  of 
that  age,  of  which  I  have  given  so  many  striking 
instances. 

But  suppose  the  story  of  "  the  massacre  of 
Amboyna"  true ;  suppose  all  those  horrid  deeds 
were  really  perpetrated :  ten  thousand  such  scenes 
would  fall  incalculably  short  of  the  sufferings  in- 
flicted on  the  Irish,  in  the  Desmond  war,  or  the 

*  Encyclopaedia  Perthensis,  I.  561. 


PREFACE.  XXXI 

insurrection  of  1641 :  and,  in  truth,  the  whole 
legend  fades  into  insignificance,  compared  with 
the  single  fact  of  the  butchery  at  Drogheda. 

Let  any  candid,  fair,  and  honourable  English- 
man, therefore,  lay  his  hand  on  his  heart,  and  say 
whether  he  can  justify  himself  for  censuring  an 
Irishman  for  mourning  over  the  melancholy  story 
of  his  country's  sufferings;  for  vindicating  her 
character;  and  for  attempting  to  remove  the 
mountains  of  obloquy  and  abuse  with  which  wick- 
ed men  have  overwhelmed  her  for  centuries  ? 
The  Englishman  feels  deeply  for  the  honour  of  his 
country.  Why  should  he  condemn,  why  should 
he  not  rather  applaud,  the  same  feeling  in  an 
Irishman  ?  Has  not  an  Irishman,  like  an  Eng- 
lishman, 

u  Senses,  affections,  passions  ?  Is  he  not  fed  with  the  same 
food,  hurt  with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the  same  diseases, 
healed  by  the  same  means,  warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same 
winter  and  summer,  as"  an  Englishman  ?  u  If  you  prick  us, 
do  we  not  bleed  ?  If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh  ?  If  you 
poison  us,  do  we  not  die  ?  And  if  you  wrong  us,  shall  we  not'* 
defend  ourselves  ? 


My  requisitions  on  the  reader  are  few  and 
simple.  I  merely  request  a  candid  and  patient 
hearing;  that  no  inveterate  prejudice  may  be 
allowed  to  operate  against  me ;  and  that  the 
"Vindicise  Hibernicse"  may  not  be  arraigned  at 
the  bar  of  criticism  as  if  it  were  injudiciously 
offered  to  the  world  as  a  regular,  systematic,  fin- 
ished work,  to  which  it  explicitly  declines  making 


XXX11  PREFACE. 

any  pretensions,— but  rather  as  a  series  of  distinct 
and  somewhat  desultory  chapters,  tending  to 
prove  certain  points,  each  insulated  from  the 
rest.  To  this  view  I  request  the  most  particular 
attention ;  and  that  it  may  be  constantly  borne 
in  mind,  throughout  the  perusal  of  the  work. 
I  court  and  defy  the  most  rigorous  scrutiny  into 
my  facts  and  inductions.  Let  no  mercy  be 
shown  to  those  on  which  there  is  the  least  doubt 
or  uncertainty :  let  all  be  rejected,  that  do  not 
carry  with  them  irresistible  conviction.  If,  in  the 
ardent  zeal  I  feel  in  what  I  deem  the  noblest  of 
causes,  I  have  occasionally  over-rated  the  force 
of  the  evidence,  and  drawn  conclusions  which  that 
evidence  does  not  appear  to  warrant,  on  some 
particular  points,  and  if  my  positions  on  those  be 
rejected,  I  trust  that  this  decision  will  not  affect 
any  of  the  others.  Let  each  stand  forth  substan- 
tively  by  itself,  and  not  bring  on  the  downfal  of 
its  neighbour  by  its  error,  or  support  its  neigh- 
bour's error  by  its  truth. 

Pecuniary  considerations  have  had  no  place 
among  the  motives  that  led  to  this  undertaking. 
This  edition  consists  of  only  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  copies,  of  which  two  hundred  and  fifty  are 
intended  to  be  gratuitously  distributed  to  public 
libraries,  reading-rooms,  and  enlightened  indivi- 
duals ;  in  order  to  afford  the  work  a  fair  chance 
of  perusal,  and  my  calumniated  country  an  op- 
portunity of  justification.  While  that  number 


PREFACE.  XXX111 

lasts,  any  library  company,  sending  an  order  for  a 
copy,  shall  be  supplied,  without  expense.  Agents 
shall  be  appointed,  to  distribute  the  books,  on  this 
plan,  in  Boston,  New  York,  Baltimore,  £jc. 


P.  S.  One  passage  of  this  work  will  justify  a 
further  trespass  on  the  reader's  attention. 

In  page  31,  I  have  quoted  Milton,  as  stating 
that  there  were  above  600,000  Protestants  massa- 
cred in  Ireland,  during  the  insurrection  of  1641 : 

"  The  rebellion  and  horrid  massacre  of  English  Protestants 
in  Ireland,  to  the  amount  of  154,000  in  the  province  of  Ulster 
only,  by  their  own  computation  ;  ivhicH,  added  to  the  other 
three,  makes  up  the  total  sum  of  that  slaughter,  in  all  likelihood, 
four  times  as  great" 

This  extract  is  taken  from  his  "  Iconoclastes," 
second  edition,  page  49.  There  are,  however,  in 
the  Philadelphia  library,  two  editions  of  Milton's 
works  complete,  dated  1738  and  1753,  in  both  of 
which  the  latter  part  of  the  passage,  in  italics,  is 
omitted. 

This  discrepancy  requires  explanation.  I  have 
taken  the  citation  of  Milton  from  "  Harris's  His- 
torical Account  of  the  Lives  and  Writings  of 
James  I.  and  Charles  I."*  in  these  words : 

"  Milton,  in  the  second  edition  of  his  Iconoclastes,  has  the 
following  passage  :  '  The  rebellion  and  horrid  massacre,'  "  &c. 
verbatim,  as  before. 

*  Vol.  II.  p.  391,  London,  1814. 
[5] 


XXXIV  PREFACE. 

We  are  therefore  reduced  to  this  dilemma : — 
either  Milton  stated  the  falsehood,  as  above 
quoted,  or  Harris  was  guilty  of  a  base  fraud  and 
literary  forgery  :  but,  as  he  was  a  man  of  respect- 
able character,  and  as,  moreover,  his  work,  which 
is  of  modern  date,  has  passed  the  ordeal  of  criti- 
cism in  England,  the  latter  supposition  cannot  be 
admitted.  The  only  conclusion  that  follows,  is, 
that  the  passage  is  fairly  quoted  by  Harris ;  and 
that  Milton,  ashamed  of  the  monstrous  and  extra- 
vagamSlegend,  to  which  he  had  lent  the  sanction 
of  his  name,  struck  it  out,  after  the  second  edition 
of  nte/work.  This  recantation  extenuates  the 
crime,  but  by  no  means  does  away  the  original 
guilt  of  the,  criminal. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

CHAPTER  I.  Historical  writing'.  Its  difficulties  ex- 
treme. Discrepancies  and  falsehoods.  Irish  history 
more  difficult,  and  more  replete  with  fraud,  than,  any 
other.  President  and  Little  Belt.  17 

CHAP.  II.  Subject  continued.  Sir  John  Temple.  The 
age  tof  miracles  revived.  Bodies,  after  being  six  weeks 
drowned,  rising  en  masse  from  the  bed  of  a  river.  A  man 
cut  and  hacked,  and  his  entrails  taken  out,  without  bleed- 
ing. Watery  ghosts  screaming  for  revenge.  34 

CHAP.  III.  Subject  continued.  Subornation.  One  thou- 
sand bills  of  indictment  found  in  two  days.  ConfiscatiQn 
on  a  large  scale.  83 

CHAP.  IV.  Three  civil  wars.  Different  degrees  of 
provocation.  Different  results.  92 

CHAP.  V.  State  of  Ireland,  under  James  I.  and  Charles  I. 
previous  to  1641.  Awful  credulity  or  imposture.  Ran- 
corous spirit  of  persecution.  Sacrilegious  burglary  and 
robbery,  by  the  archbishop  and  mayor  of  Dublin.  -  105 

CHAP.  VI.  Security  of  person,  during  lord  Clarendons 
millenium.  Martial  law.  Acts  of  state.  Jurors  pun- 
ished with  imprisonment  and  mutilation.  151 

CHAP.  VII.     Further  review  of  Clarendon's  millenium. 
Plots  and  conspiracies.    Droppers  of  letters.    Wholesale 
spoliations  in  Ulster.     Law,  conscience,  and  honour  of 
James  I.    Sir  John  Davies.    Frontless  fraud.         -         165 

CHAP.  VIII.  The  Egyptians  spoiled  once  more.  Regal 
rapine,  in  the  King's  and  Queen's  counties,  Leitrim, 
Longford,  and  Westmeath.  Three  hundred  and  eighty- 
fve  thousand  acres  forfeited,  for  the  charitable  purpose 
of  civilizing  the  natives.  .  _  _  200 

CHAP.  IX.     Projected  spoliation  of  Connaught.     Jury 
Jined  eighty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  for  not  perjuring 
themselves  by  a  false  verdict.  -  209 


XXXVI  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  X.  Wide-spread  scene  of  private  spoliation.  Needy 
projectors  and  rapacious  courtiers.  Defective  titles.  223 

CHAP.  XI.  Slanders  of  the  Irish  character.  Honourable 
testimonials.  Baron  Finglass.  Sir  Edward  Coke.  Sir 
John  Davies.  Highland  missionaries  to  civilize  the 
Irish.  Project  of  Irish  plantations  in  Great  Britain.  230 

CHAP.  XII.  Representation  in  Parliament.  Fraud, 
venality,  and  corruption  of  the  executive,  legislative,  and 
judiciary.  Rotten  boroughs.  Record  of  infamy,  on  the 
Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons.  238 

CHAP.  XIII.  "An  act  of  most  gracious,  general,  and 
free  pardon"  with  only  Jlfty  classes  of  exceptions,  each 
averaging  four  or  Jive  species  ;  that  is,  "  a  general  par- 
don" with  about  two  hundred  exceptions.  274 

CHAP.  XIV.     The  age  of  forgery,  plots,  and  perjury.     289 

CHAP.  XV.  The  insurrection  in  1641.  Was  there  a 
general  conspiracy  of  the  Irish,  in  that  year  ?  313 

CHAP.  XVI.  The  lords  justices  alarmed  at  the  prospect 
of  peace.  Corroboration  of  their  guilt.  Successful  in 
their  endeavours  to  prolong  and  extend  the  horrors  of 
•war.  Execrable  policy  of  the  English  Parliament.  346 

CHAP.  XVII.  Was  there  a  massacre  of  the  Protestants 
in  Ireland  in  1641  f  360 

CHAP.  XVI 1 1.  View  of  the  spirit  of  the  hostile  parties 
in  Ireland.  Murderous  and  never-enough-to-be-execrated 
orders  of  the  lords  justices,  and  of  the  Long  Parliament. 
Illustrious  contrast  on  the  part  of  the  Irish.  376 

CHAP.  XIX.  Examination  of  the  cruelties  said  to  have 
been  perpetrated  by  the  Irish.  386 

CHAP.  XX.  Barbarous  system  of  warfare  pursued  by 
the  Irish  government.  Indiscriminate  murder  and  mas- 
sacre of  the  Irish,  men,  women,  and  children.  St.  Leger, 
Monroe,  Coote,  Hamilton,  Grenville,  Ireton,  and  Crom- 
well, bathed  in  blood.  Five  days'1  butchery  in  Drogheda. 
Detestable  hypocrisy  of  Cromwell.  A  medal  and  gold 
chain  awarded  to  a  noyadist.  Extermination  of  man 
and  beast,  for  twenty-eight  miles! !!  437 

CHAP.  XXI.    Protestant  ascendency.  473 


VINDICLE  HIBERNIC^E. 


CHAPTER  I. 


"  Uncertain,  mistaken,  false,  and  contradictory  accounts  have  been  given 
of  the  Irish  Rebellion,  by  writers  influenced  by  selfish  views  and  party  ani- 
mosities."1 

"  Their  enemies  and  competitors  were  indefatigable  in  endeavouring  to 
load  their  whole  party  with  the  guilt  of  new  conspiracies;  (A)  and  even  (B) 
manifest  forgeries  -were  received  as  solid  proofs."  2 


Historical  writing.  Its  difficulties  extreme.  Dis- 
crepancies and  falsehoods.  Irish  history  more 
difficult,  and  more  replete  with  fraud,  than  any 
other.  President  and  Liftle  Belt. 

OF  all  the  modes  of  employing  the  intellectual 
powers  of  man  for  the  benefit  of  the  great  family 
to  which  he  belongs,  there  is  probably  none  su- 
perior, in  its  beneficial  tendency,  to  history,  pro- 
perly executed.  When  thus  executed,  and  judi- 
ciously studied,  it  is  fraught  with  advantages  of 
the  most  signal  kind.  Its  operation  in  the  moral, 
bears  a  strong  analogy  to  that  of  the  sun  in  the 
natural  world.  It  sheds  beneficent  rays  of  light 
around,  and  dispels  those  mists  of  darkness  which 

1  Carte,  III.  Preface.  5  Leland,  IV.  131. 


18  VINDICLK   HIBERNICJE. 

bewilder  the  traveller,  and  obscure  his  path.  It 
unerringly  points'  out,  to  governments  and  peo- 
ple,, the  career  of  rectitude  and  of  safety.  The 
wisdom  and  folly  of  our  ancestors,  placed  before 
our  eyes,  admonish  us  the  course  we  ought  to 
pursue,  the  conduct  we  ought  to  shun  ;  and  the 
most  characteristic  difference  between  a  sound 
and  a  pettifogging  statesman,  is,  that  the  warning 
voice  of  history  has  its  due  share  of  influence 
over  the  former,  while  it  sounds  in  vain  in  the 
ears  of  the  latter. 

But  when  this  species  of  wilting  is  made  sub- 
servient to  the  sinister  purposes  of  a  party  or 
faction — when  servile  fear  induces  a  writer  to 
calculate  his  work  to  palliate  their  enormities, 
or  to  perpetuate  their  power — when  wicked  -and 
profligate  men,  who  ought  to  be  held  up  to  the 
execration  of  mankind,  are  pourtrayed  as  objects 
of  esteem  and  veneration- — when  actions  worthy 
of  gibbets  and  guillotines,  are  blazoned  forth  as 
proofs  of  patriotism  and  public  spirit — when 
fraud  and  falsehood  guide  the  pen — or  indolence 
bars  the  entrance  into  those  stores,  whence  alone 
the  truth  can  be  derived, — then  the  valuable 
purposes  of  history  are  perverted — the  fountains 
of  correct  information  corrupted  and  poisoned — 
an  undue  bias  is  given  to  the  public  mind,  as 
weh1  as  to  that  of  individuals — other  pernicious 
consequences  are  produced* — and  the  guilty  au- 
thors have  a  fair  and  indisputable  claim  to  the 
most  unqualified  censure. 


HISTORICAL   WRITING.  *19 

Under  this  censure  fall  the  major  part  of  those 
who  have  written  on  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  whe- 
ther in  the  imposing  form  of  histories,  or  politi- 
cal pamphlets,  and  anniversary  sermons.0  The 
leading  object  with  most  of  them  has  been  to  fan 
and  foster  the  most  illiberal  and  unfounded  pre- 
judices,— to  support  and  justify  the  oppression  of 
a  lordly  aristocracy,  who,  for  a  century  and  a 
half,  have,  with  the  most  unfeeling  tyranny,  rode 
rough-shod  over  the  great  mass  of  the  nation,0 — 
and  to  hold  up  that  mass  as  objects  of  abhorrence. 
There  are  exceptions  :  a  few  writers  have  dared 
to  utter  bold  truths,  however  unpalatable  to  this 
aristocracy.  But  it  is  a  melancholy  fact,  that  so 
inveterate  has  Trejudice  been  on  these  topics,  and 
so  difficult  to  shake  off  her  iron  yoke,  that  some 
of  the  best-intentioned  writers  on  Irish  affairs 
have  fallen  into  many  of  the  most  egregious 
errors  of  their  predecessors. 

I  shall  give  one  instance,  though  rather  out  of 
place  here.  The  fairest  and  most  upright  English 
historian  of  the  calamitous  period  of  the  civil  war 
of  1641,  is  the  Rev.  Ferdinando  Warner.  He  has, 
however,  fallen  into  very  great  errors.  In  the 
account,  for  instance,  which  he  gives  of  the  mas- 
sacre (as  it  is  termed)  of  1641,  he  colours  as 
highly,  and  uses  almost  as  extravagant  terms,  as 
those  who  asserted  that  there  were  one  hundred 
and  fifty -four  thousand  murdered  in  three  months; 
or  as  others,  who  carried  the  number  to  three 
hundred  thousand ;  or  as  Milton,E  who  extends  it 


20  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

to  above  six  hundred  thousand  !F  And  yet,  won- 
derful to  tell,  when,  towards  the  close  of  his  work, 
he  goes  into  the  examination  of  the  evidence,  he 
finds  it  so  ridiculous  and  inadmissible,  that  he 
rejects  by  far  the  greater  part  of  it,  and  reduces 
the  whole  number  murdered  to  about  four  thou- 
sand. Thus,  his  facts  not  only  do  not  warrant 
his  inferences,  but  absolutely  destroy  them ;  for 
it  is  perfectly  obvious,  that  if  there  were  but  four 
thousand  murdered,  the  numberless  cruelties  he 
so  elaborately  portrays  could  not  possibly  have 
taken  place. 

u  There  is  no  credit  to  be  given  to  any  thing  that  was  said 
by  these  people  ;  which  had  not  others'  evidence  to  confirm  it: 
and  the  reason  why  so  many  idle  silly  tales  -were  registered, 
of -what  this  body  heard  another  body  say,  as  to  swell  the  col- 
lection to  two-and-thirty  thick  volumes,  in  folio,  closely  writ- 
ten, it  is  easier  to  conjecture,0  than  it  is  to  commend."3 

"  Setting  aside  all  opinions  and  calculations  in  this  affair, 
which,  besides  their  uncertainty,  are  without  any  precision  as 
to  the  space  of  time  in  which  the  murders  were  committed, 
the  evidence,  from  the  depositions  in  the  manuscript  above 
mentioned,  stands  thus  :— The  number  of  people  killed,  upon 
positive  evidence,  collected  in  two  years  after  the  insurrection 
broke  out,  adding  them  all  together,  amounts  only  to  two  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  nine ;  on  the  reports  of  other  Protestants, 
one  thousand  six  hundred  and  nineteen  more;  and  on  the  re- 
port of  some  of  the  rebels  themselves,  a  further  number  of 
three  hundred;  the  whole  making  four  thousand  an d  twenty- 
eig-ht.  Besides  these  murders,  there  is,  in  the  same  collection, 
evidence,  on  the  report  of  others,  of  eight  thousand  killed  by 
bad  usage :  and  if  we  should  allow  that  the  cruelties  of  the 

3  Warner,  146. 


HISTORICAL   WRITING.  21 

\ 

Irish,  out  of  war,  extended  to  these  numbers,  which,  consider- 
ing the  nature  of  several  of  the  depositions,  I  think  in  my  con" 
science  we  cannot,  yet  to  be  impartial  we  must  allow,  that  there 
is  no  pretence  for  laying  a  greater  number  to  their  charge. 
This  account  is  also  corroborated  by  a  letter,  which  I  copied 
out  of  the  Council  Books  at  Dublin,  written  on  the  fifth  of 
May,  sixteen  hundred  and  fifty-two,  ten  years  after  the  begin- 
ning of  the  rebellion,  from  the  Parliament  Commissioners  in 
Ireland  to  the  English  Parliament.  After  exciting  them  to 
further  severity  against  the  Irish,  as  being  afraid  •"  their  be- 
haviour towards  this  people  may  never  sufficiently  avenge  their 
murders  and  massacres,  and  lest  the  Parliament  might  shortly 
be  in  pursuance  of  a  speedy  settlement  of  this  nation,  and 
thereby  some  tender  concessions  might  be  concluded,"  the 
Commissioners  tell  them  that  it  appears  "  besides  eight  hun- 
hundred  forty-eight  families,  there  "were  killed,  hanged,  burn- 
ed, and  drowned,  six  thousand  and  sixty-two."4 

These  paragraphs,  written  by  an  enlightened 
and  independent  Protestant  historian,  after  an 
elaborate  investigation  of  the  subject,  and  with 
every  conceivable  advantage  for  eliciting  truth 
from  the  mass  of  falsehood  and  perjury  with 
which  it  had  been  previously  overwhelmed  for  a 
century,  are  amply  adequate  to  sink  into  con- 
tempt, and  to  bury  in  eternal  oblivion,  the  fabu- 
lous accounts  of  nearly  all  the  other  historians, 
who  have  made  the  welkin  ring  with  the  tremen- 
dous romances  of  massacres. 

I  shall,  in  the  course  of  this  work,  collect 
various  instances  of  a  similar  discrepancy,  which 
abound  in  the  histories  of  Irish  affairs. 

In  the  whole  range  of  history,  there  is  not 
probably  a  period  that  holds  out  stronger  induce- 
ments for  discussion,  that  affords  a  more  fertile 

4  Warner,  29 7. 


22  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

field,  but  that  is  attended  with  more  difficulty," 
than  that  of  Ireland,  during  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  to  which  I  principally  wish 
to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader. 

But  the  sinister  views  or  the  indolence  of 
historians,  are  by  no  means  the  only  rocks  on 
which  history,  so  far  as  its  noble  and  legitimate 
purposes  are  concerned,  is  in  danger  of  ship- 
wreck. There  are  others,  equally  formidable. 
With  the  most  enlightened  mind,  and  the  purest 
intentions,  the  task  of  the  historian  is  extremely 
arduous ;  and  he  will,  for  want  of  proper  charts, 
be  occasionally,  perhaps  frequently,  driven  upon 
the  shoals  and  quicksands  of  error  and  falsehood. 
So  much  of  the  real  character  of  events,  and  of 
the  actors  in  them,  depends  on  numberless  mi- 
nute circumstances,  which  elude  observation,  or 
are  liable  to  most  extravagant  misconception, 
that  it  is  obvious,  historians  are  often  obliged  to 
substitute  conjecture  for  fact;  and  hence  pro- 
found observers  have  styled  histories  "  splendid 
romances;"  which  designation  unfortunately  ap- 
plies to  a  large  portion  of  them. 

In  the  accounts  given  of  the  same  occurrences, 
by  cotemporaneous  writers,  of  adverse  parties  or 
hostile  nations,  there  is  often  such  a  total  discre- 
pancy, that  they  hardly  agree  in  any  thing  but 
the  dates,  and  the  names  of  persons  and  places  : 
were  these  stricken  out,  it  could  not  be  conceiv- 
ed that  the  narratives  had  reference  to  the  same 
events.  And  the  most  disgusting  and  awful  trait 


PRESIDENT   AND   LITTLE   BELT.  23 

in  the  affair  is,  that  these  contradictory  and  irre- 
concilable accounts  are  frequently  bolstered  up, 
on  both  sides,  by  the  solemnity  of  appeals  to 
heaven,  in  the  form  of  oaths,  taken  by  persons, 
who,  from  their  standing  in  society,  ought  to  be 
above  the  suspicion,  not  merely  of  perjury,  but 
of  the  slightest  departure  from  truth. 

As  one  appropriate  example  is  of  more  avail 
than  a  long  train  of  reasoning,  I  wish  to  call  the 
reader's  attention  to  a  striking  and  recent  case, 
which  places  the  difficulty  I  have  stated  in  the 
strongest  point  of  light,  and  cannot  fail  to  im- 
press him  with  a  clear  idea  of  its  serious  impor- 
tance. On  the  16th  of  May,  1811,  a  rencontre 
took  place  between  two  vessels  of  war,  Ame- 
rican and  English,  the  President  and  Little 
Belt,  in  which  the  latter  lost  a  number  of  men, 
and  was  in  imminent  danger  of  sinking.  In 
every  material  fact,  the  accounts  of  the  com- 
manders were  entirely  different ;  and  to  such  an 
extravagant  degree,  that  there  is  no  room  to 
ascribe  the  discordance  to  mistake.  There  must 
have  been  clear,  deliberate,  and  disgraceful  false- 
hood on  one  side  or  the  other.  There  is  no 
other  alternative. 

Commodore  Rodgers  stated,  that  he  hailed 
first, — that  his  inquiries,  what  was  the  name  of 
the  vessel,  £jc.  were  returned  by  similar  inqui- 
ries,— and  that,  when  he  repeated  his  hail,  he 
was  saluted  by  a  shot,  which  he  of  course  re- 
turned;— that  then  three  others  were  fired  by 


24  V1NDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

the  Little  Belt,  which  were  followed  by  the  rest 
of  her  broadside,  and  all  her  musketry ; — that 
he  then  " gave  a  general  order  to  fire"  which, 
in  "  from  four  to  six  minutes,"  partially  silenced 
the  guns  of  his  antagonist,  and  induced  the  com- 
modore to  order  a  cessation  of  firing ; — that,  in 
four  minutes,  the  fire  was  renewed  by  the  Little 
Belt,  and  returned  by  the  President  with  so 
much  effect,  that  the  gaff  and  colours  of  the 
former  were  down,  his  mainsail-yard  upon  the 
cap,  and  his  fire  silenced.1 

Captain  Bingham,  on  the  contrary,  stated,  that 
he  first  hailed  the  President,  of  which  there  was 
no  notice  taken  ; — that  he  was  hailed  afterwards 
by  that  vessel,  which  accompanied  the  inquiry 
with  "#  broadside"  which  was  "instantly  return- 
ed." He  adds,  "  the  action  then  became  general, 
and  continued  for  three  quarters  of  an  hour, 
when  the  President  ceased  firing,  and  appeared 
to  be  on  fire."  "  He  was,"  he  adds,  "  obliged  to 
desist  from  firing,"  that  is  to  say,  from  the  attack 
on  the  President,  as  the  latter  vessel  "falling  off," 
his  guns  "  would  not  bear  on  her."K  The  infe- 
rence is  not  overstrained,  that  he  wished  it  to  be 
understood  that  the  President  had  escaped  from 
him. 

The  discrepancy  here  is  extreme.  Each 
party  charges  the  other  with  the  original  of- 
fence of  the  aggression.  This  is  all-important. 
And  the  American  commander  states,  that,  in  the 
first  instance,  he  silenced  the  Little  Belt  in  from 


PRESIDENT   AND    LITTLE   BELT.  25 

four  to  six  minutes, — and,  in  the  second,  in  from 
three  to  five:  whereas,  according  to  captain  Bing- 
ham,  the  action  continued  "  three  quarters  of  an 
hour"  and  was  discontinued  by  commodore 
Rodgers,  whose  vessel  was  on  fire; — and  he 
was  disabled  from  pursuing  the  President,  in 
consequence  of  the  state  of  his  sails  and  rig- 
ging. To  cap  the  climax,  the  depositions  of  a 
number  of  the  officers  and  men  on  both  sides 
were  taken,  and  appeared  to  confirm  these  con- 
tradictory accounts ;  so  that  to  gross  and  revolt- 
ing falsehood,  is  added  barefaced  perjury,  on  one 
side  or  the  other.  It  is  wholly  irrelevant  to  my 
purpose  to  inquire  where  the  falsification  rested. 
Subsequent  events,  however,  have  shed  adequate 
light  upon  the  subject. 

To  this  strong  and  pointed  case,  I  invite  the 
most  serious  attention  of  the  reader.  To  the 
falsehood  and  perjury  involved  in  it,  there  were 
no  very  extraordinary  temptations,  particularly 
to  the  perjury.  It  might  have  been  of  great  im- 
portance, indeed,  to  the  aggressor,  to  exonerate 
himself  from  the  criminality  of  the  aggression, 
in  order  to  escape  the  danger  of  being  cashiered : 
but  the  officers  and  men  had  no  such  temptation ; 
nor  is  it  easy  to  perceive  what  temptation  they 
could  have  had  to  the  commission  of  such  a 
heinous  offence. 

I  had  intended  to  adduce  other  cases  in  point:1- 
but  I  forbear.  I  feel  convinced,  that  no  analo- 
gous facts,  how  strong  soever,  could  enhance  the 

4 


26  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

cogency  of  the  inferences  deducible  from  this 
incident.  There  is  one  point  of  view  in  which 
it  may  be  regarded,  that  ought  not  to  be  over- 
looked. In  the  present  state  of  printing,  and  the 
open,  unreserved  communication  between  na- 
tions, fraud  and  falsehood  can  hardly  flatter 
themselves  to  escape  detection.  This  considera- 
tion must  have  powerful  operation  to  circum- 
scribe and  restrain  them,  and  was  almost  wholly 
unknown  in  former  times,  when  of  course  the 
inducements  to  fraud  and  perjury  were  so  far 
greater  than  they  are  at  present. 

The  application  remains,  and  can  hardly  fail 
to  have  been  anticipated  by  the  reader.  Not- 
withstanding the  slenderness  of  the  temptation  to 
perjury,  and  the  absolute  certainty  of  detection, 
it  was,  we  see,  flagrantly  committed  in  this  case. 
What  a  lesson  on  history  generally — but  more 
especially  on  Irish  history !  What  dependence, 
under  this  view  of  the  materials  from  which  his- 
tory is  formed,  can  be  placed  on  the  accounts  of 
the  affairs  of  that  nation,  which  are  wholly  ex 
parte — where  the  temptations  were  so  enormous, 
(being  nothing  less  than  the  fee  simple  of  millions 
of  acres)  where  detection  was  so  difficult,  and 
where  numberless  palpable  perjuries  are  on  re- 
cord ? 


NOTES  ON  CHAPTER  I. 

A  P.  17.  JVfew  Conspiracies.']  It  is  far  from 
extravagant  to  state,  that  at  various  periods, 
wholly  exclusive  of  the  rebellion  of  1641,  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  the  soil  of  Ireland  have  been 
forfeited  for  pretended  plots  and  conspiracies, 
which  were  a  never-failing  source  of  rapine  upon, 
and  oppression  of,  the  natives.  In  a  future  chap- 
ter, I  shall  state  some  of  them  in  detail.  Nothing 
could  exceed  the  wickedness  of  the  contrivers, 
except  the  clumsiness  of  the  contrivances.  Ano- 
nymous letters,  dropped  in  the  castle  of  Dublin, 
accusing  of  treason  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of 
large  estates,  were  one  of  the  principal  levers 
by  which  this  machinery  of  plots  and  conspiracies 
was  put  into  operation. 

B  P.  17.  Manifest  forgeries  were  received  as 
solid  proofs."]  This  line,  a  fair  description  of 
the  histories  of  Ireland,  ought  to  be  prefixed,  as 
a  motto,  to  four-fifths  of  them,  as  a  necessary 
admonition,  a  sort  of  beacon,  equivalent  to 
"  Traveller,  beware."  Never,  since  the  world 
was  formed,  did  "  manifest  forgery"  fraud,  and 
perjury  prevail  to  such  an  extent,  as  in  the  evi- 
dence taken  to  establish  the  Irish  massacre,  as  it 
is  termed ;  never  were  "  manifest  forgeries"  so 
readily  received  as  " solid  proofs"  The  speci- 
mens I  shall  lay  before  the  reader,  must  convince 


28  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

the  most  sceptical,  that  this  massacre  is  perfectly 
on  a  level,  for  truth  and  probability,  with  the 
Arabian  Nights  Entertainments,  or  the  aunciente 
travayles  of  John  Mandeville,  yclept  the  knight  of 
lying  memory.  The  astonishing  feature  in  this 
affair  is,  that  Leland,  thus  convinced  of  the  ex- 
istence of  these  "manifest  forgeries"  should 
himself,  through  a  large  portion  of  his  history, 
receive  those  very  "  manifest  forgeries"  as  "  solid 
proofs." 

c  P.  19.  Anniversary  sermons."]  For  above  a 
century  and  a  half,  the  talents  of  numbers  of 
clergymen  of  the  established  church  in  Ireland 
have  been  in  requisition,  to  perpetuate  and  in- 
crease the  rancour  and  hostility  that  are  instilled 
from  the  cradle  into  the  tender  minds  of  the  dif- 
ferent denominations  of  Protestants  against  their 
Roman  Catholic  fellow-subjects,  which  they  carry 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  many  of  them 
across  an  ocean  three  thousand  miles  in  extent. 
The  store-house,  whence  are  derived  these  in- 
cendiary weapons,  has  been  the  "  thirty-two  vo- 
lumes" of  depositions,  in  which,  according  to 
Dr.  Leland,  "manifest  forgeries  were  received  as 
solid  proofs."  If  "  blessed  be  the  peace  makers," 
surely  the  sowers  of  discord  must  be  accursed. 

D  P.  19.  Rode  rough-shod.']  This  refers  to 
the  barbarous  and  piratical  code,  enacted  for  the 
purpose  of  "preventing  the  growth  of  Popery" 


NOTES.  29 

a  system  admirably  calculated  to  oppress  and 
impoverish,  as  well  as  to  brutalize  and  demora- 
lize, the  mass  of  the  nation,  and  enslave  them  to 
the  aristocracy  or  oligarchy  that  ruled  the  land. 
A  chapter  or  two  shall  be  devoted  to  the  deve- 
lopment of  this  system. 

F  P.  20.  Few,  even  of  the  learned,  know  this 
fact  respecting  Milton,  which  displays  such  an  aw- 
ful disregard  of  truth,  as  attaches  an  eternal  blot 
on  his  memory.  The  reader  may  readily  conceive 
what  poignant  distress  was  excited  by  the  disco- 
very of  a  procedure  so  diametrically  opposite  to 
the  general  character  of  Milton,  whom  we  are 
taught,  from  infancy,  to  regard  as  ranking 
among  the  best  of  men.  But,  after  all,  it  only 
adds  one  to  the  numberless  proofs  already  before 
the  world,  of  the  fallibility  of  human  nature,  and 
evinces  that  he  was  but  a  mere  man,  and,  so 
far  as  respects  this  case,  either  grossly  deceived, 
or  a  gross  deceiver ; — there  is  no  other  alterna- 
tive :  and  a  liberal  examination  will  more  readily 
incline  us  to  place  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former 
class,  the  man  who  could,  in  cold  blood,  to  pan- 
der to  the  purposes  of  a  party,  intimate  an  opi- 
nion, that  there  were  above  six  hundred  thousand 
Protestants  massacred  in  Ireland,  at  a  period 
when  the  whole  population  was  not  many  more 
than  a  million,  and  when  the  Protestants  were 
but  as  two  to  eleven  of  the  Roman  Catholics.5 
Mnsi  Ta  le  monde. 

5  Petty,  1$. 


30  V1NDICUE   HIBBRNICJE. 

G  P.  20.  It  is  easier  to  conjecture.]  This  sen- 
tence exhibits  a  manifest  dereliction  of  the  duty 
of  an  historian.  Warner  had  before  him  the 
plain  fact,  that  the  mass  of  testimony  was  doubled 
or  trebled  by  the  admission  of  hearsay  evidence, 
"what  this  body  heard  another  body  say:"6  and 
there  was  no  difficulty  in  ascertaining  the  object, 
which  the  historian  ought  to  have  stated.  This 
object  was  to  criminate  the  Catholics,  sacrifice 
them  on  gibbets,  and  confiscate  their  property. 
That  this  was  Dr.  Warner's  "conjecture"  cannot 
be  doubted.  The  phraseology  admits  of  no  other 
construction.  But  it  is  merely  insinuated,  in  a 
manner  unworthy  of  so  very  respectable  an  his- 
torian. 

H  P.  22.  Mended  with  more  difficulty.']  This 
difficulty  requires  explanation.  The  power  and 
influence  of  the  oligarchy  in  Ireland,  which  tri- 
umphantly styles  itself,  "the  Protestant  ascen- 
dency" have  been  erected  on  the  basis  of  the 
frauds  of  this  portion  of  the  history  of  Ireland, 
whereby  they  have  been  enabled  to  enslave,  op- 
press, and  destroy  their  fellow  subjects  at  their 
pleasure  :  and  "  Great  is  the  Diana  of  Ephesus," 
whenever  the  "  craft  was  in  danger"  by  any  se- 
rious effort  to  dispel  the  mists  of  prejudice,  they 
have  spared  neither  pains  nor  expense  to  coun- 
teract the  Godlike  purpose.  Their  most  sacred 
maxim,  like  that  of  all  other  oppressors,  has  been 
— Divide  et  impera. 

6  Warner,  ubi  supra. 


PROOFS  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS.  81 

t  P.  25.  Other  cases  in  point.']  Two  cis- Atlantic 
cases,  of  recent  discussion,  afford  abundant  matter 
for  reflection.  They  are,  the  battle  of  Bunker's 
Hill,  and  the  capture  of  major  Andre.  The  opi- 
nions that  have  heretofore  universally  prevailed, 
respecting  the  conduct  of  general  Putnam  in  the 
former,  and  on  the  character  and  motives  of  the 
captors  of  the  unfortunate  major,  have  been  of 
late  brought  into  controversy,  and  debated  with 
great  zeal  and  ardour.  On  the  latter  question, 
the  opinion,  so  honourable  to  the  parties,  as  well 
as  to  then1  country,  whereby  the  procedure  is 
rendered  so  invaluable  and  beneficial  to  the  world 
in  point  of  example,  has  been  unanimously  con- 
firmed by  the  public.  But  with  respect  to  gene- 
ral Putnam,  the  question  appears  to  be  adhuc  sub 
judice,  after  having  slept  for  above  forty  years. 
So  much  for  history,  even  under  its  most  favour- 
able aspects  !  What  must  it  be  under  its  worst  ? 


PROOFS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

E  P.  20.  "  The  rebellion  and  horrid  massacre  of  English 
protestants  in  Ireland,  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
four  thousand  in  the  province  of  Ulster  only,  by  their  own 
computation  ;  which,  added  to  the  other  three,  makes  up  the 
total  sum  of  that  slaughter,  in  all  likelihood,  four  times  as 
great  ;'V  that  is,  above  six  hundred  thousand  massacred  in  a 
few  months,  by  insurgents,  who,  except  in  two  or  three  in- 
stances, were  uniformly  defeated,  and  slaughtered  without 
mercy  ! 

7  Milton's  Iconoclastes,  second  edition,  p.  49. 


32  VINDICU2    HlBERNI(ij£. 

i  P.  24.  Extract  from  the  despatches  of  Commodore  Rodgers  to 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  dated  May  23,  1811. 

"  At  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  past  eight,  being  a  little  for- 
ward of  her  weather  beam,  and  distant  from  seventy  to  a  hun- 
dred yards,  hailed,  "  What  ship  is  that  ?"  To  this  inquiry 
no  answer  was  given  :  but  I  was  hailed  by  her  commander, 
and  asked,  "  What  ship  is  that  ?"  Having  asked  the  first 
question,  I  of  course  considered  myself  entitled,  by  the  com- 
mon rules  of  politeness,  to  the  first  answer.  After  a  pause  of 
fifteen  or  twenty  seconds,  I  reiterated  my  first  inquiry  of, 
"  What  ship  is  that  ?"  and  before  I  had  time  to  take  the  trum- 
pet from  my  mouth,  was  answered  by  a  shot,  that  cut  off  one 
of  our  main-top  back-stays,  and  went  into  our  main-mast.  At 
this  instant,  captain  Caldwell  (of  marines)  who  was  standing 
very  near  me,  on  the  gangway,  having  observed,  "  Sir,  she 
has  fired  at  us,"  caused  me  to  pause.  Just  as  I  was  in  the 
act  of  giving  an  order  to  fire  a  shot  in  return,  and  before  I  had 
time  to  resume  the  repetition  of  the  intended  order,  a  shot 
was  actually  fired  from  the  second  division  of  this  ship,  and 
was  scarcely  out  of  the  gun,  before  it  was  answered  from  our 
assumed  enemy,  by  three  others,  in  quick  succession,  and  soon 
after  by  the  rest  of  his  broadside  and  musketry.  When  the  first 
shot  was  fired,  being  under  an  impression  that  it  might  possi- 
bly have  proceeded  from  accident,  and  without  the  orders  of 
the  commander,  I  had  determined,  at  the  moment,  to  fire  only 
a  single  shot  in  return ;  but  the  immediate  repetition  of  the 
previous  unprovoked  outrage  induced  me  to  believe  that  the 
insult  was  premeditated ;  and  that,  from  our  adversary  being 
at  that  time  as  ignorant  of  our  real  force  as  I  was  of  his,  he 
thought  this,  perhaps,  a  favourable  opportunity  of  acquiring 
promotion,  although  at  the  expense  of  violating  our  neutrality, 
and  insulting  our  flag.  I  accordingly,  with  that  degree  of  re- 
pugnance incident  to  feeling,  equally  determined  neither  to  be 
the  aggressor,  nor  suffer  the  flag  of  my  country  to  be  insulted 
with  impunity,  gave  a  general  order  to  fire;  the  effect  of  which, 
in  from  four  to  six  minutes,  as  near  as  I  can  judge,  having 
produced  a  partial  silence  of  his  guns,  I  gave  orders  to  cease 
firing,  discovering,  by  the  feeble  opposition,  that  it  must  be  a 
ship  of  very  inferior  force  to  what  I  had  supposed  ;  or  that 
some  untoward  accident  had  happened  to  her. 


PROOFS   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS.  33 

"  My  orders,  in  this  instance,  however,  (although  they  pro- 
eeeded  alone  from  motives  of  humanity,  and  a  determination 
not  to  spill  a  drop  of  blood  unnecessarily,)  I  had,  in  less  than 
four  minutes,  some  reason  to  regret ;  as  he  renewed  his  fire, 
of  which  two  thirty-two  pound  shot  cut  off  one  of  our  fore 
shrouds,  and  injured  our  foremast.  It  was  now  that  I  found 
myself  under  the  painful  necessity  of  giving  orders  for  a  re- 
petition of  our  fire,  against  a  force  which  our  forbearance  alone 
had  enabled  to  do  us  any  injury  of  moment.  Our  fire  was 
accordingly  renewed,  and  continued  from  three  to  Jive  minutes 
longer,  when,  perceiving  our  opponent's  gaff  and  colours  down, 
his  maintopsail-yard  upon  the  cap,  and  his  fire  silenced,  al- 
though it  was  so  dark,  that  I  could  not  discern  any  other  par- 
ticular injury  we  had  done,  or  how  far  he  was  in  a  situation 
to  do  us  further  harm,  I  nevertheless  embraced  the  earliest 
moment  to  stop  our  fire,  and  prevent  the  further  effusion  of 
blood." 

*  P.  24.  Extract  of  a  letter  from  Captain  Arthur  Batt  Bingham 

to  Admiral  Sawyer,  dated  May  21,  1811. 
"  The  ship  was  brought  to,  her  colours  hoisted,  her  guns 
double-shotted,  and  every  preparation  made  in  case  of  a  sur- 
prise. By  his  manner  of  steering  down,  he  evidently  wished 
to  lay  his  ship  in  a  position  for  raking,  which  I  frustrated,  by 
wearing  three  times.  About  fifteen  minutes  past  eight,  he 
came  within  hail.  I  hailed,  and  asked,  What  ship  that  was  ? 
he  again  repeated  my  words,  and  fired  a  broadside,  which  I 
instantly  returned.  The  action  then  became  general,  and 
continued  so  for  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  when  he  ceased 
firing,  and  seemed  to  be  on  fire  about  the  main-hatchway. 
He  then  filled.  /  was  obliged  to  desist  from  firing,  as  the 
ship  falling  off,  no  gun  would  bear,  and  had  no  after  sail  to 
keep  her  to,  all  the  rigging  and  sails  cut  to  pieces ;  not  a 
brace  nor  a  bow-line  left.  He  hailed,  and  asked  what  ship 
this  was  :  I  told  him.  He  then  asked  me  if  I  had  struck  my 
colours  ?  my  answer,  No  :  and  asked  what  ship  it  was  ?  as 
plain  as  I  could  understand,  (he  having  shot  some  distance  at 
this  time)  he  answered,  The  United  States'  frigate.  He  fired 
no  more  guns,  but  stood  from  us,  giving  no  reason  for  his 
most  extraordinary  conduct." 

5 


CHAPTER  II. 

"  Who  should  be  trusted,  when  one's  own  right  hand 
Is  perjured  to  the  bosom  ?" Shakspeare. 

Subject  continued.  Sir  John  Temple.  The  age 
of  miracles  revived.  Bodies,  after  being  six 
weeks  drowned,  rising  en  masse  from  the  bed 
of  a  river.  A  man  cut  and  hacked,  and  his 
entrails  taken  out,  without  bleeding.  Watery, 
ghosts  screaming  for  revenge  for  three  months. 

IN  such  cases  of  discrepancy  as  that  of  the 
President  and  Little  Belt,  (and  similar  ones  are 
to  be  found  on  almost  every  topic  of  impor- 
tance) how  can  even  a  cotemporary  historian, 
with  very  considerable  advantages,  decide  be- 
tween them  ?  He  can  have  been  an  eye-witness 
of  few  of  the  events  he  narrates.  For  all  the 
rest,  he  must  necessarily  depend  on  the  accounts 
of  others.  He  must  either  rely  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  or  blend  the  two  accounts  together. 
In  either  case,  error  appears,  as  already  observ- 
ed, absolutely  inevitable.  And  even  of  those 
events  in  which  the  writer  has  himself  been  a 
party,  he  must  derive  much  of  his  information 
from  others.  An  officer,  who  has  been  engaged 
in  a  battle,  can  have  had  but  a  limited  view  of 
the  passing  events.  Armies  sometimes  occupy 
miles  square  ;  and  therefore  small  is  the  portion 
that  can  be  accurately  surveyed  by  any  individual. 


IRISH    HISTORY.  35 

If  this  view  be  correct,  as  I  think  can  hardly 
be  disputed,  even  so  far  as  respects  history  writ- 
ten with  a  sincere  regard  to  truth,  and  a  fixed 
and  unalterable  determination  not  to  swerve,  in- 
tentionally, from  her  luminous  path,  how  de- 
plorable must  be  the  case  with  histories,  of  which 
the  original  authors  were  under  the  influence  of 
all  the  hideous  passions  that  deform  and  degrade 
human  nature,  and  assimilate  men  to  demons — 
bigotry,A  dire  insatiable  rancour,  national  hosti- 
lity, a  ravenous  thirst  for  the  blood8  and  estates0 
of  the  natives, — and  where  the  modern  authors 
are  servile  copyists,  who  implicitly  follow  in  the 
beaten  and  foul  path  of  their  predecessors  ! 

Almost  all  the  writers  of  Irish  history,  down 
to  Sir  John  Temple,  were  precisely  in  this  situa- 
tion, under  the  influence  often  of  the  whole,  but 
never  free  from  the  goadings  of  some,  of  those 
dire  passions.  They  were  the  historians  of  their 
own  exploits,  and  pursued  the  horrible  system  of 
policy  which  led  Rome  to  the  establishment  of 
her  grinding  tyranny  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
then  known  world, — and  which  has  laid  the  popu- 
lous and  once  mighty  empire  of  Hindostan  pros- 
trate at  the  feet  of  a  small  body  of  merchants  in 
Leadenhall  street.  The  unfortunate  natives  of 
Ireland,  as  well  the  descendants  of  the  Strong- 
bows,  the  Butlers,  the  Courcys,  the  Fitzste^ 
phenses,  the  Fitzgeralds,D  the  Raymonds,  and  the 
Lacys,  as  the  aboriginals  of  the  country,  were, 
under  the  most  absurd  pretexts,  almost  constant- 


36  VINDICLE   HIBERN1CJE. 

ly  goaded  into  insurrection :  every  spark  of  dis- 
cord between  rival  chieftains  was  fanned  into  a 
flame,  to  afford  the  government  a  pretext  for 
interfering  between  them, — crushing  both,  sacri- 
ficing their  lives,  and  enriching  the  governors 
with  their  lordly  possessions ;  and  when,  thus 
goaded,  they  recurred  to  arms,  in  defence  of 
themselves,  then-  wives,  their  children,  and  their 
estates,  they  were  pursued  with  the  most  ruthless 
and  remorseless  cruelty  ;E  and,  to  palliate  the  ty- 
ranny, the  rapine,  and  the  barbarities  of  their 
oppressors,  they  were  overwhelmed  with  the 
foulest  abuse,  and  portraits  drawn  of  them,  which 
would  have  better  suited  incarnate  demons  than 
human  beings.F 

I  have  already  hinted,  that  one  of  the  principal 
objects  of  this  work  is  to  investigate  the  insur- 
rection of  1641,  strip  it  of  the  fraudulent  mis- 
representations by  which  it  has  been  disfigured, 
and  lay  it  before  the  world  in  the  garb  of  truth. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  induce  the  reader  to 
bring  to  the  subject  a  large  portion  of  candour, — 
to  evince  on  how  "  sandy  a  foundation"  this  story 
rests, — to  expose  the  blind  credulity,  or  the  si- 
nister policy,  of  the  great  body  of  historians,  who 
have  given  full  faith  and  confidence  to  the  narra- 
tive of  Sir  John  Temple,  I  shall  submit  a  fair 
specimen  of  the  documents  on  which  his  history 
depends  for  support.  Fortunately  for  the  holy 
cause  of  truth,  but  unfortunately  for  his  character 
and  his  history,  he  has  quoted  his  authorities  at 


TEMPLE,    CLARENDON,    £$C.  37 

full  length.  They  are  taken  from  the  "  thirty-two 
thick  folio  volumes  of  depositions"  mentioned  by 
Warner,8  which  exhibit  such  a  mass  of  fraud, 
falsehood,  absurdity,  and  let  me  add  impossibility, 
as  I  may  venture  to  assert  never  was  exhibited 
before, — and,  for  the  honour  of  human  nature,  it 
is  to  be  hoped,  never  will  be  again.  These  de- 
positions demand  a  much  more  detailed  exposi- 
tion than  I  can  give  them  in  the  present  chapter. 
It  is  a  melancholy  truth,  that  they  form  the  basis 
of  all  the  horrible  narratives  on  this  subject,  of 
all  the  authors  who  have  treated  on  it,  from 
Temple  to  Clarendon,  from  Clarendon  to  Bor- 
lase,  from  Borlase  to  Hume,  and  from  Hume 
down  to  Russell's  Modern  Europe.  Temple 
embellished  them  with  all  the  hideous  colouring 
that  could  excite  terror  and  abhorrence :  and,  I 
repeat,  nearly  all  the  succeeding  historians  have 
laid  Temple  under  heavy  contributions,  and,  with- 
out adverting  to  the  fabulous  evidence  on  which 
he  relies,  and  which  carries  its  own  condemna- 
tion with  it,  have  borrowed  not  merely  his  facts, 
but  his  very  phraseology.  The  overwhelming 
decision  of  Dr.  Warner,  which  I  have  quoted  in 
page  20,  ought  to  have  set  the  question  at  rest, 
above  fifty  years  ago. 

I  shall  therefore  devote  several  chapters  to 
this  particular  subject,  and  give  such  copious  ex- 
tracts from  the  depositions,  as  will  convince  any 

8  Warner,  146. 


38  V1NDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

man  whose  heart  is  not  steeled,  and  whose  con- 
science is  not  seared,  against  doing  justice  to  the 
Irish,  of  the  superlative  wickedness  of  the  tribu- 
nals which  received  such  depositions,  the  equally 
superlative  folly  of  the  writer  who  filled  his  book 
with  them,  and  the  never-to-be-forgiven  careless- 
ness (to  use  the  most  favourable  terms)  of  those 
writers  who  relied  on  such  a  deceptious,  fraudu- 
lent guide. 

To  relieve  the  sombre  hue  of  this  long  chap- 
ter, I  shall  give  anticipatory  extracts  from  a  few 
of  those  wonderful  tales,  from  which,  as  I  have 
said,  Temple  and  his  copyists  have  drawn  their 
highly-coloured  pictures  of  the  massacre. 

"  Arthur  Culm,  of  Cloughwater,  in  the  county  of  Cavan, 
esquire,  deposeth,  That  he  -was  credibly  informed,  by  some 
that  were  present  there,  that  there  were  thirty  women  and 
young  children,  and  seven  men,  flung  into  the  river  of  Beltur- 
bert;  and  when  some  of  them  offered  to  swim  for  their  lives, 
they  were,  by  the  rebels,  followed  in  boats,  and  knocked  on 
the  head  with  poles ;  the  same  day  they  hanged  two  women 
at  Turbert ;  and  this  deponent  doth  -verily  believe,  that  Mul- 
more  O'Rely,  the  then  sheriff,  had  a  hand  in  the  commanding 
the  murder  of  those  said  persons,  for  that  he  saw  him  write 
two  notes,  which  he  sent  to  Turbert,  by  Brien  O'Rely,  upon 
whose  coming  these  murders  were  committed  :  and  those  per- 
sons who  were  present,  also  affirmed,  that  the  bodies  of  those 
thirty  persons  drowned  did  not  appear  upon  the  water  till 
about  six  weeks  after,  past ;  as  the  said  CPRely  came  to  the 
town,  all  the  bodies  came  floating  up  to  the  very  bridge;  those 
persons  were  all  formerly  stayed  in  the  town  by  his  pro- 
tection, when  the  rest  of  their  neighbours  in  the  town  went 


Temple,  122. 


MIRACULOUS  APPEARANCE.         39 

It  may  not  be  time  misemployed  to  examine 
this  deposition,  which,  I  beg  leave  to  say,  is  less 
exceptionable  than  many  others  of  this  precious 
collection.  The  deponent  was,  in  the  first  place, 
" credibly  informed"  that  these  persons  " were 
flung  into  the  river"  and  this  information  he  had 
from  "  some*  who  were  present  there."  He  "  ve- 
rily believed  that  Mulmore  O'Rely  had  a  hand  in 
commanding  the  murder:"  and  his  "belief"  rest- 
ed on  the  very  cogent  and  convincing  reason, 
that  he  "  saw  him  write  two  notes,  which  he  sent 
to  Turbert  by  Brien  O'Rely,  on  whose  coming 
these  murders  were  committed."  On  this  strong 
evidence,  Mulmore  O'Rely,  in  all  likelihood,  lost 
his  life  and  estate,  which  estate  was  probably 
guilty  of  the  murder.  In  Ireland,  in  former 
times,  under  the  mild  government  of  England, 
large  estates  were  frequently  guilty  of  enormous 
crimes,  particularly  high  treason,  and  deservedly 
punished :  and  the  larger  they  were,  the  more 
prone  to  guilt,  and  the  more  certain  of  punish- 
ment. 

But  on  casting  my  eye  once  more  over  the 
deposition,  I  find  I  overlooked  the  chief  part  of 
the  evidence  against  Mulmore.  The  "thirty 
bodies"  (seven  remained  behind)  rose  up  by  com- 
mon consent,  when  this  murderer  made  his  ap- 
pearance, and  "  came  floating  up  to  the  very 
bridge"  probably  as  public  prosecutors  of  this 
horrid  culprit.  It  is  not  said,  unfortunately,  whe- 
ther they  took  their  oaths  to  the  murder :  this  is. 


40  YINDICUE    HIBERNICJB. 

however,  presumable ;  and  it  is  to  be  supposed 
that  it  was  owing  to  an  oversight,  that  Temple 
was  silent  on  the  subject.  A  doubt  has  been 
started  by  a  learned  barrister,  whether  the  ap- 
pearance of  these  bodies,  "  floating  up  to  the  very 
bridge,"  at  the  critical  minute,  when  the  said 
O'Rely  "  came  to  town,"  is  to  be  considered  as 
positive  or  circumstantial  evidence.  Much  of  this 
would  depend  on  the  property  of  Mulmore.  If 
he  were  a  very  rich  man,  the  appearance  of 
"  thirty  bodies  floating  to  the  very  bridge"  ought 
to  be  regarded  as  positive  evidence ;  but  if  a  poor 
man,  not  worth  hanging,  it  ought  to  be  set  down 
as  circumstantial. 

But  to  be  serious : 

Lives  there  a  man  who  can  peruse  this  depo- 
sition, find  it  introduced  into  a  grave  history, 
know  it  to  have  been  a  part  of  the  evidence  on 
which  rests  the  credit  of  the  tales  of  what  Bor- 
lase's  title-page  states  as  "  the  execrable  Irish  Re- 
bellion" and  to  have  been,  with  other  evidence, 
equally  absurd,  instrumental  in  confiscating  the 
property  and  immolating  the  lives  of  the  Irish 
Catholics;  without  a  strong  sentiment  of  mingled 
astonishment  and  indignation,  without  a  thorough 
conviction,  that  all  the  histories,  grounded  on  such 
documents,  however  supported  by  the  imposing 
names  of  Clarendon,  Hume,  or  Russell,  must 
be  radically  false  and  corrupt,  and  worthy  to  be 
altogether  rejected  ? 


MIRACLES !    MIRACLES !  41 

Another  deposition,  with  equal  gravity,  nar- 
rates a  story  of  a  man  who  was  wounded  in  se- 
veral places,  his  belly  ripped  up,  and  his  entrails 
taken  out,  without  bleeding ! ! 

"  James  Geare,  of  the  county  of  Monaghan,  deposeth, 
That  the  rebels  at  Clownes  murdered  one  James  Netterville, 
proctor  to  the  minister  there,  who,  although  he  was  diversely 
•wounded,  his  belly  ripped  up,  and  his  entrails  taken  out,  and 
laid  above  a  yard  from  him,  yet  he  bled  not  at  all,  until  they 
lifted  him  up,  and  carried  him  away  ;  at  which  this  deponent 
being  an  eye-witness,  much  wondered  ;  and  thus  barbarously 
they  used  him,  after  they  had  drawn  him  to  go  to  mass  with 
them."10 

Another  states,  that  one  of  the  rebels  made 
three  attempts  to  stab  a  woman  with  a  drawn 
sword ;  but  such  was  her  trust  in  God,  and  such 
his  miraculous  protection  extended  to  her  on  the 
moment,  that  she  was  absolutely  invulnerable. 

"  Mr.  George  Creighton,  minister  of  Virginia,  in  the  coun- 
ty of  Cavan,  deposeth,  among  other  particulars  in  his  exami- 
nation, That  divers  women  brought  into  his  house  a  young 
woman,  almost  naked,  to  whom  a  rogue  came  up  on  the  way, 
these  women  being  present,  and  required,  her  to  give  him  her 
money,  or  else  he  would  kill  her,  and  so  drew  his  srvord;  her 
answer  was,  "  You  cannot  kill  me  unless  God  give  you  leave, 
and  his  will  be  done  :"  whereupon  the  rogue  thrust  three 
times  at  her  naked  body,  ivith  his  drawn  sword,  and  yet 
never  pierced  her  skin ;  whereat  he  being,  as  it  seems,  much 
confounded,  went  away  and  left  her ;  and  that  he  saw  this 
woman,  and  heard  this  particular  related  by  divers  women, 
who  were  by,  and  saw  what  they  reported."11 

And  this  wonderful  story,  be  it  observed,  is 
testified  to  by  a  reverend  minister  of  God,  who 

J0  Temple,  88.  n  Idem,  123. 


42  VINDICDE    HIBERNICJE. 

was  admirably  qualified  to  authenticate  it,  as  "  he 
heard  it  related  by  divers  women,  who  saw  what 
they  reported" 

But  the  most  extraordinary  and  extravagant 
circumstance  is  the  appearance  of  the  ghosts  of 
murdered  persons,  which,  according  to  those 
"  manifest  forgeries,"  received  as  "  solid  proofs,"1* 
stationed  themselves  in  the  middle  of  a  river, 
breast-high,  and  remained  there  for  three  months, 
that  is,  from  December  20th,  1641,  till  the  fol- 
lowing lent,  seeking  vengeance  on  the  "  bloody 
Papists,"  crying  "Revenge,  Revenge,  Revenge" 

"  Catharine,  the  relict  of  William  Cooke,  late  of  the  county 
of  Armagh,  carpenter,  sworn  and  examined,  saith,  That  about 
the  20th  of  December,  1641,  a  great  number  of  rebels,  in  that 
county,  did  most  barbarously  drown,  at  that  time,  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  Protestants,  men,  women  and  children,  in  the 
river,  at  the  bridge  of  Portnedown ; ,  and  that,  about  nine  days 
afterwards,  she  saw  a  vision  or  spirit,  in  the  shape  of  a  man, 
as  she  apprehended,  that  appeared  in  that  river,  in  the  place 
of  the  drowning,  bolt  upright,  breast-high,  with  hands  lifted 
up,  and  stood  in  that  posture  there,  until  the  latter  end  of  lent 
next  following :  about  which  time,  some  of  the  English  army 
marching  in  those  parts,  whereof  her  husband  was  one,  (as  he 
and  they  confidently  told  this  deponent)  saw  that  spirit  or  vi- 
sion standing  upright,  and  in  the  posture  aforementioned  ;  but 
after  that  time,  the  said  spirit  or  vision  vanished,  and  appear- 
ed no  more,  that  she  knoweth.  And  she  heard,  but  saw  not,, 
that  there  were  other  visions  and  apparitions,  and  much  shriek- 
ing and  strange  noise  heard  in  that  river,  at  times  afterward. 
Jurat.  February  24,  1643."1S 

"  Elizabeth,  the  wife  of  captain  Rice  Price,  of  Armagh, 
deposeth  and  saith,  That  she,  and  other  women,  whose  hus- 
bands were  murdered,  hearing  of  divers  apparitions  and  vi- 

14  Leland,  IV.  1 3 1 .  13  Temple,  121. 


SCREECHING    GHOST8.  43 

sions,  which  were  seen  near  Portnedown  bridge,  since  the 
drowning  of  her  children,  and  the  rest  of  the  Protestants  there, 
went  unto  the  bridge  aforesaid,  about  twilight  in  the  evening  ; 
then  and  there,  upon  a  sudden,  appeared  unto  them  a  vision  or 
spirit,  assuming  the  shape  of  a  woman,  waist-high,  upright, 
in  the  water,  often  repeating  the  word,  Revenge  !  Revenge  ! 
Revenge  !  whereat  this  deponent,  and  the  rest,  being  put  into 
an  amazement  and  affright,  walked  from  the  place.  Jurat. 
January  29,  1642.''14 

"  James  Shaw,  of  Market-Hill,  in  the  county  of  Armagh, 
innkeeper,  deppseth,  That  many  Irish  rebels,  in  the  time  of 
this  deponent's  restraint  and  staying  among  them,  told  him 
very  often,  and  that  it  was  a  common  report,  that  all  those  that 
lived  about  the  bridge  of  Portnedown,  were  so  affrighted  with 
the  cries  and  noise  made  there,  of  some  spirits  or  visions,  for 
revenge,  as  that  they  durst  not  stay,  but  fled  away  thence,  (so 
as  they  protested,)  affrighted  to  Market-Hill,  saying,  they 
durst  not  stay  nor  return  thither,  for  fear  of  those  cries  and 
spirits,  but  took  grounds  and  made  creates  in  or  near  the  pa- 
rish of  Mullabrack.  Jurat.  Aug.  14,  1642."15 

"  Joan,  the  relict  of  Gabriel  Constable,  late  of  Drumard,  in 
the  county  of  Armagh,  gentleman,  deposeth  and  saith,  That 
she  hath  often  heard  the  rebels,  Owen  O'Farren,  Patrick  O'- 
Conellan,  and  divers  others  of  the  rebels  at  Drumard,  earnest- 
ly say,  protest,  and  tell  each  other,  that  the  blood  of  some  of 
those  that  were  knocked  in  the  heads,  and  afterwards  drown- 
ed, at  Portnedown  bridge,  still  remained  on  the  bridge,  and 
would  not  be  washed  away ;  and  that  often  there  appeared  vi- 
sions or  apparitions,  sometimes  of  men,  sometimes  of  women, 
breast-high  above  the  water,  at  or  near  Portnedown,  which  did 
most  extremely  and  fearfully  screech  and  cry  out  for  vengeance 
against  the  Irish  that  murdered  their  bodies  there ;  and  that 
their  cries  and  shrieks  did  so  terrify  the  Irish  thereabouts, 
that  none  durst  stay  nor  live  longer  there,  but  fled  and  re- 
moved further  into  the  country;  and  this  was  a  common 
report  amongst  the  rebels  there,  and  that  it  passed  for  a  truth 
amongst  them,  for  any  thing  she  could  ever  observe  to  the 
contrary.  Jurat.  January  1,  1643."1S 

14  Temple,  122.  ls  Idem,  121.  M  Ibidem. 


44  V1NDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

Almost  every  circumstance  narrated  in  Tem- 
ple's history,  is  corroborated  by  one  or  more  de- 
positions. Most  of  them  are  fully  as  absurd  and  as 
perjured  as  the  above.  A  very  large  proportion 
are  hearsay  :  "  A  being  credibly  informed  that  B 
had  murdered  one  hundred  Protestants,"  #>c.  £$c. 
In  the  devouring  rage  against  the  persons,  and 
lust  after  the  property,  of  the  Catholics,  every  kind 
of  evidence  was  acceptable,  no  matter  how  absurd, 
improbable,  or  impossible. 

In  the  number  of  the  witnesses,  who  testify  to 
the  pretended  massacre,  the  most  distinguished  is 
a  dean  Maxwell,  afterwards  bishop  of  Kilmore, 
an  abstract  of  whose  deposition  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Appendix  to  Borlase's  history.     It  is  a  sort  of 
history  of  the  insurrection,  and  occupies  no  less 
than  twelve  large  folio  pages,  which  contain  so 
many  extravagant  and  impossible  tales,  that  no 
man  could  swear  to  it  but  a  perjurer.  How  many 
pages  the  whole  contained,  whether  twenty,  or 
fifty,  or  one  hundred,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to 
decide  ;  it  is  "  to  be  sought  for  in  the  archives  of 
Dublin."17      On  the  dean's   authority  rests  the 
hacknied  and  Gulliverian  assertion,  that  the  pre- 
cise number  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  thou- 
sand were  massacred,  in  three  months,  in  Ulster : 
and  yet,  wonderful  to  tell,  there  is  in  this  very 
deposition,  on  the  all-important  topic  of  the  "hun- 
dred and  fifty-four  thousand  persons  slaughtered," 

17  Borlase,  App.  126. 


CLERICAt,    PERJURY.  45 

a  most  palpable  and  overwhelming  contradiction, 
which  at  once  destroys  its  credibility.  In  one 
part  of  it,  the  dean  swears  that  "  it  was  credibly 
told  him,  that  the  persons  slaughtered  amounted 
to  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  thousand,  whether 
in  Ulster  or  the  whole  kingdom,  he  durst  not  in- 
quire."* Why  he  durst  not  inquire,  is  not  stated; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  assign  any  reason : — the 
story  carries  absurdity  on  its  face:  the  one 
kind  of  information  was  as  readily  and  as  soon 
acquired  as  the  other.  In  a  subsequent  page,  he 
swears  positively,  that  "  there  were  then  above  one 
hundred  and  fifty-four  thousand  wanting  in  the 
province  of  Ulster  alone."  This  discordance, 
which  would  destroy  the  evidence,  in  any  ho- 
nourable court  in  Christendom,  of  a  Washington, 
a  Franklin,  a  Fayette,  a  Sheridan,  a  Brougham, 
or  a  Wyndham,  was  of  no  importance  in  the  era 
of  perjury,  anno  1642,  when  the  lives  and  for- 
tunes of  the  Irish  were  at  stake,  and  when 
princely  fortunes  were  the  reward  of  the  perju- 
rer and  his  employer. 

*  Extracts  from  the  Deposition  of  Robert  Maxwell,  since 

Bishop  of  Kilmore. 

"  And  further  saith,  that  it  was  credibly  told  him,  that  the 
rebels,  least  they  should  hereafter  be  charged  with  more  mur- 
ders than  they  had  committed,  commanded  their  priests  to 
bring  in  a  true  account  of  them;  and  that  the  persons  so 
slaughtered,  whether  in  Ulster,  or  the  -whole  kingdom,  the 
deponent  durst  not  inquire,  in  March  last,  amounted  unto 
one  hundred  fifty-four  thousand."18 

18  Borlase,  App.  132. 


46  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

"  He  might  add  to  these  many  thousands  more :  but  the 
diary  which  he,  the  deponent,  wrote  among  the  rebels,  being 
burned  with  his  house,  books,  and  all  his-  papers,  he  referreth 
himself  to  the  number  in  gross,  which  the  rebels  themselves 
have  upon  inquiry  found  out  and  acknowledged,  which  not- 
withstanding will  come  short  of  all  that  have  been  murdered  in 
Ireland,  there  being  above  one  hundred jifty  and  four  thousand 
now  wanting  of  the  British  within  the  very  precinct  of  Ul- 
ster.    And  the  deponent  further  saith,  that  it  was  common 
table-talk  amongst  the  rebels,  that  the  ghosts  of  Mr.  William 
Fullerton,  Timothy  Jephes,  and  the  most  of  those  who  were 
thrown  over  Portnedown  bridge,  were  daily  and  nightly  seen 
to  walk  upon  the  river,  sometimes  singing  of  psalms,  some- 
times brandishing  of  naked  swords,  and  sometimes  screeching 
in  the  most  hideous  and  fearful  manner.     The  deponent  did 
not  believe  the  same  at  first,  and  yet  is  doubtful  whether  to 
believe  it  or  not;  but  saith  that  divers  of  the  rebels  assured 
him,  that  they  themselves  did  dwell  near  to  the  said  river, 
and  being  daily  frighted  with  these  apparitions  (but  especial- 
ly with  their  horrible  screeching)  were  in  conclusion  forced 
to  remove  further  into  the  country.     Their  own  priests  and 
friars  could  not  deny  the  truth  thereof;  but  as  oft  as  it  was  by 
deponent  objected  unto  them,  they  said,  that  it  was  but  a 
cunning  slight  of  the  devil  to  hinder  this  great  work  of  propa- 
gating the  catholic  religion,  and  killing  of  heretics  ;  or  that  it 
was  wrought  by  witchcraft.     The  deponent  himself  lived 
within  thirteen  miles  of  the  bridge,  and  never  heard  any  man 
so  much  as  doubt  of  the  truth  thereof;  howsoever  the  de- 
ponent obligeth  no  man's  faith,  in  regard  he  saw  it  not  with 
his  own  eyes ;  otherwise  he  had  as  much  certainty  as  morally 
could  be  required  of  such  a  matter"19 

ROBERT  MAXWELL. 
Deposed  to  August  22,  1642. 

JOHN  WATSON, 
WILLIAM  ALDRICK. 

19  Borlase,  App.  136. 


BARONET'S  PERJURY.  47 

Could  there  be  a  more  extravagant  idea  held 
out,  than  the  reason  assigned  for  keeping  an  ac- 
count of  the  murders,  lest  the  murderers  should 
be  charged  with  a  greater  number  than  they  ac- 
tually killed  ?  Some  reason  was  necessary :  but 
he  who  could  not  invent  a  more  plausible  pretext 
was  ill  calculated  for  his  trade  of  king's  evidence. 
No  man,  whose  grade  of  intellect  ranks  beyond 
that  of  an  ideot,  can  give  credit  to  such  a  ridicu- 
lous story.  Yet  on  such  authority  most  of  the 
writers  on  Irish  affairs,  and  among  the  rest,  as  we 
have  seen,  Milton  himself,  gave  countenance  to 
the  precise  number  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-four 
thousand  persons  murdered  in  Ulster  alone.  On 
the  trial  of  lord  Macguire,  the  same  legend, 
"  with  •variations"  in  point  of  number,  was  sworn 
to  by  Sir  Charles  Coote. 

Sir  Charles  Cootis   Testimony  concerning  the  generality  of 
the  Rebellion. 

"  Sir  Phelim  O'Neile  and  Roger  Moore  were  the  actors  in 
the  massacres ;  and  by  public  directions  of  some  in  place,  and 
of  the  titulary  bishops,  for  sending  an  exdct  account  of  -what 
persons  were  murdered  throughout  all  Ulster,  a  fourth  part  of 
the  kingdom  of  Ireland,  to  the  parish  priests  of  every  parish. 
And  they  sent  in  a  particular  account  of  it,  and  the  account 
was  one  hundred  and  four  thousand  seven  hundred  in  one  pro- 
vince, in  the  first  three  months  of  the  rebellion."80 

20  Trial  of  Lord  Macguire,  22r. 


48  V1NDICL&   HIBERNIC&. 


NOTE  I.  ON  CHAPTER  II. 

A  P.  35.  Bigotry.']  Thank  Heaven,  we  live 
in  an  enlightened  age,  whose  liberality  on  the 
subject  of  differences  in  religious  opinions,  ren- 
ders it  difficult  to  conceive  the  deplorable  bigotry 
and  rancorous  spirit  of  intolerance,  that  prevailed 
in  that  dark  and  persecuting  era.  Each  denomi- 
nation of  Christians  regarded  its  own  opinions 
as  infallible,  and  all  others  as  heretical  and  dam- 
nable :  and,  next  to  the  right  of  worshipping 
God  as  they  thought  proper,  they  prized  the 
right  to  control,  restrain,  and  persecute  all  who 
dared  to  differ  from  them  ;  and  instances  are  to 
be  found,  of  then1  exculpating  themselves  from 
the  charge  of  being  friendly  to  toleration,  as  from 
some  foul  crime.  All  abhorred  it,  as  the 
greatest  abomination.  The  solemn  league  and 
covenant,  which  was  most  tyrannicaUy  enforced 
on  all  classes,  expressly  avowed  its  object  to  be 
the  EXTIRPATION  of  "  Popery,  prelacy,  supersti- 
tion, heresy,  schism,  and  whatsoever  shall  be  found 
to  be  contrary  to  sound  doctrine  and  the  power  of 
Godliness."  Popery  had  originally  an  exclusive 
monopoly  of  the  detestation  of  the  Puritans ;  but 
when  they  had  succeeded  in  suppressing  it,  the 
established  religion,  from  its  supposed  affinity  to 
Popery,  became  almost  equally  odious  to  them  ; 
and,  whenever  they  had  the  power,  was  prohibited 


CHRISTIAN    CHARITY.  49 

under  heavy  penalties,  not  quite  so  severe,  how- 
ever, as  those  against  Popery.  "Heresy,  schism, 
and  whatsoever  shall  be  found  contrary  to  sound 
doctrine  and  the  power  of  Godliness"*  embraced 
every  religious  opinion  or  practice,  which  in  the 
slightest  degree  varied  from  the  Westminster 
Confession  of  Faith.f  This  was  the  standard  of 
perfection,  by  which  the  ruling  powers  measured 

*  "  1647,  November  23.  Debate  upon  the  ordinance  against 
blasphemies  and  heresies,  and  the  punishment  voted  to  be 
death."™ 

1647,  October  13.  The  Commons  voted,  that  "  The  liberty 
of  conscience  granted  shall  extend  to  none  that  shall  preach, 
print,  or  publish  any  thing  contrary  to  the  first  Jlfteen  of  the 
thirty-nine  articles,  except  the  eighth."23 

u  1644,  August  9.  Ordered,  That  Mr.  White  do  give  order 
for  the  public  burning  of  one  Williams  his  books,  intituled,  &c. 
concerning  the  tolerating  of  all  sects  of  Christians"** 

"  Concerning  religion,  rve  have  expressed  the  desires  of  the 
kingdom  of  Scotland,  and  given  a  testimony  against  tolera- 
tion."" 

\  "  1643,  Oct.  16.  Ordered,  That  such  members  of-  the 
House,  as  have  not  yet  taken  the  Solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant, do  take  and  subscribe  the  same  on  Thursday  next,  which 
day  is  appointed  a  peremptory  day  for  the  taking  and  sub- 
scribing the  same  by  such  members."26 

"  1645,  May  8.  Order,  That  the  company  of  merchant  ad- 
venturers do  send  the  Covenant  to  all  of  their  company,  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  return  the  names  of  such  as  shall  refuse  to 
take  it."" 

"  1645-6,  January  15.  A  petition  from  the  lord  mayor, 
aldermen,  and  common  council  of  London,  to  the  House  of 

22  Whitelock,  232.         M  Idem,  276.         *  Journals,  III.  585. 
55  Thurloe,  I.  111.      2S  Journals,  III.  318      27  Whitelock,  14O. 

7 


50  VTNDICIvE    HIBERNIGE. 

the  rectitude  or  depravity  of  faith  or  conduct.  It 
was  the  true  theological  and  intellectual  bed  of 
Procrustes,  whereby  redundancies  of  opinion 
were  to  be  lopped  off,  and  deficiencies  to  be 
supplied.  He  who  could  not  command  or  feign 
assent  to  the  most  minute  particulars  of  this  con- 
fession, was  branded  as  a  "  delinquent"  no  matter 
how  orthodox  he  might  be  in  general.  The  so- 
lemnization of  Christmas,  and  various  ceremonies, 
wholly  indifferent  in  themselves,  were  interdicted, 
and  made  punishable.  The  use  of  the  book  of 
common  prayer  was  likewise  forbidden,  under 
heavy  penalties.* 

Peers,  desiring  the  speedy  settling  of  church  government,  ac- 
cording to  the  Covenant;  and  . 

"  That  no  toleration  be  granted  of  Popery,  prelacy,  super- 
stition, heresy,  schism,  profaneness,  or  any  thing  contrary  to 
sound  doctrine,  and  that  all  private  meetings,  contrary  to  the 
Covenant,  may  be  restrained."28 

*  "  1647,  December  20.  Referred  to  a  committee,  to  examine 
•what  delinquent  ministers  did  preach,  or  read  the  book  of  com- 
mon prayer,  and  to  silence  them."29 

"  1646,  March  1.  Both  Houses  gave  an  allowance  to  the 
earl  of  Chesterfield,  with  an  intimation  that  he  do  not  entertain 
malignant  preachers  in  his  house,  nor  use  the  book  of  common 
prayer."™ 

"  1647,  October  16.  Debate  touching  religion,  and  voted, 
That  the  indulgence  as  to  tender  consciences  shall  not  extend 
to  tolerate  the  common  prayer."31 

"  This  indulgence  shall  not  extend  to  tolerate  the  use  of  the 
book  of  common  prayer,  in  any  place  whatsoever"52 

28  Parl.  Hist.  XII.  194.  29  Whitelock,  285. 

30  Idem,  243.  3l  Idem,  276.  32  Thurloe,  I.  47. 


INTOLERANCE.  51 

When  their  reformed  brethren  experienced 
.such  "  tender  mercies"  at  their  hands,  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  what  mercy  and  justice  were  meted  out 
to  the  Roman  Catholics,  who  were  the  objects  of 
their  inveterate  and  universal  abhorrence.  In 
this  one  point,  all  the  reformers,  however  enve- 
nomed and  hostile  towards  each  other,  most  per- 
fectly accorded. 

When  this  horrible  and  anti-christian  spirit  as- 
sumed the  efficient  shape  of  statutes,  it  tortured 
itself  into  the  production  of  a  system  of  the  most 
revolting  injustice.  A  slight  sketch  of  it  would 
fill  volumes.  It  would  extend  beyond  the  limits 
prescribed  to  this  chapter,  to  enter  into  detail. 
I  shall  therefore  confine  myself,  for  the  present, 
to  two  of  its  features,  by  which  some  idea  may  be 
formed  of  its  true  character.  These  were  framed 
under  Protestant  Episcopal  monarchs. 

A  Roman  Catholic  was  liable  to  a  penalty  of 
twenty  pounds  a  month,  (and  observe,  there  were 
thirteen  months  in  the  legal  year)  if  he  did  not 
attend  public  worship,  in  one  of  the  established 
churches,  on  Sundays.  This  extravagant  and 
ruinous  penalty,  which  was  imposed  under  Eliza- 
beth, was  not  deemed  enough  to  satisfy  the  rapa- 
city of  the  ruling  party  under  James  I. ;  and  ac- 
cordingly an  act  was  passed,  in  the  third  year  of 
his  reign,  authorizing  the  king  to  seize  two-thirds 
of  the  estates  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  in  lieu  of 
the  penalty.33 

33  Pickering,  VII.  154. 


52 56*  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

But  wicked  as  was  this  law,  there  was  one 
that  far  exceeded  it.  A  penalty  of  ten  pounds  a 
month  was  imposed  on  those  who  "  relieved  or 
harboured"  persons  who  did  not  attend  worship 
in  some  established  church :  and  to  this  penalty 
every  man  or  woman  was  liable,  even  for  "  main- 
taining, retaining,  relieving,  keeping,  or  harbour- 
ing his  or  her  father  or  mother,"  if  that  father  or 
mother  were  within  the  purview  of  the  statute. 
But,  as  "  a  special  grace  and  favour,"  there  was 
a  clause,  exempting  from  the  penalty  those  whose 
parents  were  paupers,  or  destitute  of  "  sufficient 
maintenance." 

"  Provided  nevertheless,  That  this  act  shall  not  in  any  wise 
extend  to  punish,  or  impeach,  any  person  or  persons,  FOR 

MAINTAINING,  RETAINING,  RELIEVING,  KEEPING,  OR  HAR- 
BOURING HIS,  HER,  OR  THEIR  FATHER  OR  MOTHER!  Wanting, 

•without  fraud  or  covin,  other  habitation,  or  sufficient  mainte- 
nance, or  the  ward  of  any  such  person,  or  any  person  that 
shall  be  committed  by  authority  to  the  custody  of  any  by  whom 
they  shall  be  so  relieved,  maintained,  or  kept ;  any  thing  in 
this  act  contained  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding."34 

This  provision,  however,  ought  not  to  be  sup- 
posed to  arise  from  liberality  or  justice,  but  from 
a  sordid  fear,  lest  the  poor  parents  should  become 

burdensome  to  the  parish. 
i 

*  Four  pages,  containing  a  great  variety  of  proofs  of  the  positions  advanced 
in  the  text,  have  been  cancelled  in  this  place ;  the  citations  being  deemed 
redundant. 

34  Pickering,  VII.  161. 

Who 


HONOUR  THY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER.    57 

Who  can  reflect  on  this  law,  without  a  holy 
abhorrence  of  the  spirit  by  which  it  was  dictated, 
and  the  men  by  whom  it  was  enacted?  The 
decalogue  and  the  laws  and  customs  of  all  the 
savage  as  weU  as  civilized  world,  with  the  single 
exception,  at  that  period,  of  England,  order  us  to 
honour  our  fathers  and  mothers :  but  in  that 
wretched  and  besotted  age,  a  man  was  liable  to 
pay  one  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  sterling  per 
annum,  for  even  "  relieving  or  harbouring  his 
father  or  mother,"  if  they  were  so  conscientious- 
ly scrupulous  as  not  to  abandon  the  religion  in 
which  they  were  educated,  and  conform  to  a  re- 
ligion they  abhorred. 

He  might  harbour  or  relieve  a  drunkard,  an 
adulterer,  a  thief,  a  robber,  or  even  a  murderer, 
without  penalty :  but  the  "  relieving"  the  mother 
who  bore  him,  might  involve  him  in  ruin ! ! 

The  foregoing  extracts,  although  principally 
taken  from  English  laws  and  proceedings,  are 
perfectly  in  point  here,  as  the  same  spirit  of 
bigotry  and  remorseless  persecution  inspired  the 
leaders  of  the  predominant  party  in  both  king- 
doms ;  and,  as  naturally  might  be  expected,  pro- 
duced similar  fruits  on  both  sides  of  the  Irish 
channel. 


58  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

NOTE  II.  ON  CHAPTER  II. 

B  P.  35.  Ravenous  thirst  for  the  blood  of  the 
natives."]  However  shocking  and  incredible  it 
may  appear,  it  is  established,  by  the  concurring 
testimony  of  Clarendon,  Carte,  Warner,  Le- 
land, and  nearly  all  the  other  writers  on  that 
period  of  Irish  history,  that  the  predominant 
party  in  Ireland  cherished,  for  a  considerable 
time,  the  bloodthirsty  and  barbarous  project  of 
an  utter  extirpation  of  the  Catholics,  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  new  plantations  all  over  the  king- 
dom. To  the  attainment  of  this  nefarious  object, 
all  their  measures  were  invariably  directed :  nor 
did  they  abandon  it  from  its  inhumanity,  but  from 
finding  it  utterly  impracticable. 

"  The  favourite  object  of  the  Irish  governors,  and  the  Eng- 
lish parliament,  was  the  utter  extermination  of  all  the  Catholic 
inhabitants  of  Ireland !  Their  estates  were  already  marked  out, 
and  allotted  to  their  conquerors ;  so  that  they  and  their  poste- 
rity were  consigned  to  inevitable  ruin."4* 

"  It  is  evident  from  their  [the  lords  justices]  last  letter  to  the 
lieutenant,  that  they  hoped  for  an  extirpation,  not  of  the  mere 
Irish  only,  but  of  all  the  old  English  families  that  were  Roman 
Catholics."53' 

"  Whatever  were  the  professions  of  the  chief  governors, 
the  only  danger  they  really  apprehended,  was  that  of  a  too 
speedy  suppression  of  the  rebels.  The  futility  of  their  pre- 
tences and  affected  fears  was  instantly  discovered."43 

"  The  justices  seem  to  have  taken  proper  measures  to  exas- 
perate the  natives  against  the  English  transplanted  thither,  as 
if  they  were  so  secure  of  baffling  the  rebels  when  they  pleased, 
that  they  wished  that  they  might  go  on  unchecked  for  a  while, 

n  Leland,  III.  192.     S2  Warner,  176.     »  Leland,  III.  185. 


THIRST    OF   BLOOD.  59 

that  the  forfeited  lands  might  be  the  more,  and  the  nation  attain 
to  peace  only  by  the  vastness  of  the  desolation ;  and  of  all  this, 
their  own  management,  give  too  many  and  too  observable  in- 
timations."54 

"  Parsons  and  Borlase  did,  by  their  authority,  command 
many  things,  which  did  not  only  exasperate,  but  render  the 
Irish  desperate,  as  will  appear  by  several  of  their  own  letters, 
and  public  acts  of  state  ;  and  that,  in  the  first  eruption  of  the 
rebellion,  they  had  a  greater  eye  to  the  forfeitures  of  the  rebels'1 
estates,  than  to  use  such  means  as  might,  by  the  hopes  of  par- 
don, induce  the  better  sort  of  the  nobility,  gentry,  and  free- 
holders to  hear  reason,  and  to  come  in  and  submit  themselves 
to  his  majesty's  mercy,  though  they  had  express  directions 
from  the  king  and  the  two  houses  so  to  do  :  and  it  is  no  less 
notorious,  that  Sir  John  Temple,  in  writing  his  history,  was 
bound  by  confederacy  to  assert  the  proceedings  of  the  then 
lords  justices."" 

"  The  parliament  party,  who  had  heaped  so  many  re- 
proaches and  calumnies  upon  the  king,  for  his  clemency  to  the 
Irish,  who  had  grounded  their  own  authority  and  strength  up- 
on such  foundations  as  were  inconsistent  with  any  toleration 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  even  -with  any  humanity 
to  the  Irish  nation,  and  more  especially  to  those  of  the  old  na- 
tive extraction,  the  -whole  race -whereof  they  had  upon  the  mat- 
ter sworn  to  extirpate"*6 

"  To  say  nothing  of  what  was  done  by  that  Parliament,  re- 
lating to  affairs  here  which  had  an  affinity  to  those  of  Ireland, 
the  House  of  Commons  passed  a  vote,  that  no  toleration  of  the 
Romish  religion  should  be  allowed  in  Ireland;  and  that  the 
House  of  Lords  should  be  desired  to  join  with  them,  in  ad- 
dressing the  king  to  make  a  public  declaration  to  that  effect. 
This  might  serve  their  own  ends  perhaps,  but  was  surely  very 
unseasonable  with  regard  to  Ireland,  where  nothing  could  so 
much  promote  the  cause  of  the  rebellion,  as  to  have  it  thought 
a  mere  war  of  religion  :  this  violence  of  the  Parliament  gave 
too  much  credit  to  the  reports  that  were  continually  flying 
about,  of  a  design  of  EXTIRPATING  the  Roman  Catholics." 

w  Clarendon's  I.  Preface.  ss  Nalson,  II.  7. 

58  Clarendon's  I.  115.  "  Warner,  133.  * 


60  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

"  If  it  be  more  needful  to  dispose  of  places  out  of  hand,  and 
that  it  may  stand  with  his  majesty's  pleasure  to  fill  some  of 
them  with  Irish  that  are  Protestants,  and  that  have  not  been 
for  the  extirpation  of  the  Papist  natives,  it  will  much  satisfy 
both,  and  cannot  justly  be  excepted  against."*8 

u  Mr.  Brent  landed  lately  here,  and  hath  brought  with  him 
such  letters  as  have  somewhat  changed  the  face  of  this  go- 
vernment from  what  it  was,  when  the  Parliament  pamphlets 
were  received  as  oracles,  their  commands  obeyed  as  laws,  and 
extirpation  preached  for  Gospel"*9 

"  Though  extirpation  both  of  nation  and  religion  be  not 
named,  yet  I  conceive  it  is  contrived  almost  in  every  proposi- 
tion; and  the  consideration  thereof  confirms  me  in  a  full  belief 
of  the  malicious  practices  of  the  Cootes  and  Ormsbyes,  in  the 
county  of  Roscommon."60 

ttf  The  term  of  extirpation  is  worn  out  here,  and  the  intention 
not  acknowledged  to  me  by  the  prime  authors  therein,  with 
whom  I  have  been  plain  after  my  blunt  way."61 

"  The  reason  of  their  [the  justices]  advice  is  founded  upon 
their  darling  scheme  of  an  extirpation  of  the  old  English  pro- 
prietors, and  a  general  plantation  of  the  whole  kingdom  with  a 
new  colony  ;  for  this  is  the  meaning  of  what  they  allege,  to 
show  it  to  be  "  unsafe  for  his  majesty,  and  destructive  to  the 
kingdom,  to  grant  the  petitioners'  request ;  as  being  altogether 
inconsistent  with  the  means  of  raising  a  considerable  revenue 
for  his  crown,  of  settling  religion  and  civility  in  the  kingdom  ; 
and  of  establishing  a  firm  and  lasting  peace,  to  the  honour  of 
his  majesty,  the  safety  of  his  royal  posterity,  and  the  comfort 
of  all  his  faithful  subjects."62 

"  By  precipitate  votes,  the  two  Houses,  confiscating  all  their 
lands,  and  making  sale  of  them,  cast  the  whole  nation  into  such 
a  general  despair,  that  if  there  were  any  loyal  or  innocent 
among  them,  (which,  we  may  justly  fear,  were  very  few)  they 
were  forced  to  take  party  with  those^  whom  very  probably  they 
might  abhor."63 

58  Carte,  III.  226.          59  Idem,  169.          60  Idem,  311. 
61  Idem,  155.         63  Carte,  I.  391.         M  Warwick,  200. 


THIRST    OF    BLOOD.  61 

These  difficulties  and  considerations  were  of  little  weight 
with  the  lords  justices  ;  who,  having  got  a  thin  House  of 
Commons  to  their  mind,  of  persons  devoted  to  their  interest 
and  measures,  resolved  to  improve  the  opportunity  offered, 
and  to  get  such  acts  passed,  as  might  distress  the  king,  exas- 
perate the  bulk  of  the  nation,  spread  the  rebellion,  and  so  pro- 
mote their  darling  scheme  of  extinguishing  the  old  proprietors, 
and  making  a  new  plantation  of  the  kingdom"** 

"  Such  considerations  as  these  were  not  agreeable  to  the 
views  of  the  lords  justices,  who  had  set  their  hearts  on  the  ex- 
tirpation, not  merely  of  the  mere  Irish,  but  likewise  of  all  the 
old  English  families  that  were  Roman  Catholics,  and  the  mak- 
ing of  a  new  plantation  all  over  the  kingdom  ;  in  which  they 
could  not  fail  to  have  a  principal  share  ;  so  all  their  reasonings, 
upon  all  occasions,  were  calculated  and  intended  to  promote 
that  their  favourite  scheme. 

"  This  scheme  would  have  been  destroyed,  if  the  rebels  in 
general  had  submitted,  upon  the  late  proclamation  ;  there  was 
a  general  disposition  in  those  of  the  Pale,  and  offers  made  by 
the  chiefs  of  them  to  submit :  and  nothing  was  so  likely  to 
stop  the  effects  of  that  disposition,  as  to  treat  those,  who  had 
actually  submitted,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  the  rest,  that 
they  should  receive  no  favours  upon  such  submission,  nor  any 
benefit  by  his  majesty's  proclamation.  Hence  all  the  gentle- 
men, who  surrendered  themselves,  were,  without  being  admitted 
to  the  presence  of  the  justices,  committed  to  the  castle  of  Dublin; 
preparations  were  made  for  their  trial,  and  designs  published 
of  their  being  prosecuted  with  the  utmost  severity.  But  as 
the  prisoners  had  never  appeared  in  the  field,  nor  been  con- 
cerned in  any  warlike  action,  there  was  a  want  of  proper  facts 
wherewith  to  charge  them,  and  of  sufficient  witnesses  to  prove 
those  facts.  To  supply  both  these  defects,  the  lords  justices 
had  recourse  to  the  rack,  a  detestable  expedient,  invented  to 
extort  from  unhappy  prisoners,  in  the  anguish  of  their  pain, 
or  in  the  terror  of  the  tortures  prepared  for  them,  such  conle's- 
sions  as  those  who  have  the  management  of  that  accursed  in- 
strument, have  a  mind  to  put  into  their  mouths  ;  and  therefore 

64  Carte,  I.  330. 


62  VINDICOS    HIBERNICJE. 

justly  abhorred  by  all  lovers  of  liberty,  and  forbidden  by  the 
laws  of  England."65 

"  These  measures  served  their  own  scheme  of  an  extir- 
pation, by  racking  those  gentlemen,  whose  treatment  could 
not  fail  of  deterring  every  body  from  venturing  themselves  into 
their  power  for  the  future."66 

"These  propositions,  for  putting  the  Roman  Catholics  of 
Ireland  under,  greater  hardships  than  any  they  had  ever  com- 
plained of  before,  incapacitating  them  from  all  offices  whatever, 
disabling  them  from  sitting  in  Parliament,  (a  privilege  which 
they  had  always  enjoyed,  and  from  which  alone  they  could 
expect  any  redress  of  future  grievances)  forfeiting  all  their  es- 
tates, real  and  personal,  and  yet  obliging  them,  when  their  all, 
was  taken  from  them,  to  make  impossible  reparations  and  sa- 
tisfactions for  losses  sustained,  and  devastations  committed, 
in  the  war;  suppressing  their  religion,  banishing  all  their  cler- 
gy, and  nerv  planting-  the  kingdom,  were  evidently  calculated 
to  hinder  any  peace  at  all ;  and  certainly  came  from  some  of 
that  party  of  men  which  first  formed  the  design  of  an  extirpa- 
tion of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and,  by  publishing  that  design, 
made  the  rebellion  so  general  as  it  proved  at  last.  They  all 
breathed  the  same  spirit;  and  though  extirpation  both  of  nation 
and  religion  was  not  expressly  mentioned,  yet  it  seemed  to  be 
contrived  effectually  in  all  the  propositions.  They  appeared 
so  monstrous  and  unreasonable,  that  it  was  thought  they  could 
proceed  from  nothing  but  an  high  degree  of  madness  or 
malice."67 

"  There  is  too  much  reason  to  think,  that,  as  the  lords  jus- 
tices really  wished  the  rebellion  to  spread,  and  more  gentlemen 
of  estates  to  be  involved  in  it,  that  the  forfeitures  might  be  the 
greater,  and  a  general  plantation  be  carried  on  by  a  new  set  of 
English  Protestants  all  over  the  kingdom,  to  the  ruin  and  ex- 
pulsion of  all  the  old  English  and  natives  that  were  Roman 
Catholics ;  so,  to  promote  what  they  wished,  they  gave  out 
speeches  upon  occasions,  insinuating  such  a  design,  and  that 
in  a  short  time  there  would  not  be  a  Roman  Catholic  left  in  the 
whole  kingdom.  It  is  no  small  confirmation  of  this  notion, 

65  Carte,  I.  293.  66  Idem,  301.  67  Idem,  502. 


WHOLESALE    CONFISCATION.  63 

that  the  earl  of  Ormond,  in  his  letters  of  January  27th,  and 
February  25th,  1641-2,  to  Sir  W.  St.  Leger,  imputes  the 
general  revolt  of  the  nation,  then  far  advanced,  to  the  pub- 
lishing of  such  a  design ;  and  when  a  person  of  his  great  mo- 
desty and  temper,  the  most  averse  in  his  nature  to  speak  his 
sentiments  of  what  he  could  not  but  condemn  in  others,  and 
who,  when  obliged  to  do  so,  does  it  always  in  the  gentlest  ex- 
pression, is  drawn  to  express  such  an  opinion,  the  case  must 
be  very  notorious.  I  do  not  find  that  the  copies  of  these  let- 
ters are  preserved  :  but  the  original  of  Sir  W.  St.  Leger's,  in 
answer  to  them,  sufficiently  shows  it  to  be  his  lordship's  opi- 
nion ;  for,  after  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  these  two  letters, 
he  useth  these  words,  The  undue  promulgation  of  that  severe 
determination,  to  extirpate  the  Irish  and  Papacy  out  of  this 
kingdom,  your  lordship  rightly  apprehends  to  be  too  unseason- 
ably published?™ 

NOTE  III.  ON  CHAPTER  II. 

c  P.  35.  Thirst  for  the  estates.']  Identified  with 
the  sanguinary  project  of  "exterminating"  the 
devoted  Roman  Catholics,  the  existence  of  which 
is  fully  proved  in  the  preceding  note,  was  that  of 
confiscating  the  whole  of  their  estates,  for  the 
aggrandizement  of  their  sworn  enemies.  The 
evidences  adduced  in  support  of  the  exterminat- 
ing scheme,  might  suffice  to  establish  that  of 
confiscation.  But  I  wish  to  "  make  assurance  dou- 
bly sure"  and  shah1  therefore  submit  a  document, 
which  cannot  fail  to  satisfy  the  reader,  that  I 
have  not  over-rated  the  extravagant  and  rapaci- 
ous thirst  that  prevailed  with  the  predominant 
party  in  England  and  Ireland,  for  the  possessions 
of  the  Irish  Catholics.  The  insurrection  begaa 

68  Carte,  I.  263. 


64  VINDICUE    HIBERNICJE. 

in  Ulster,  on  the  23d  of  October,  1641,  and  did 
not  spread  into  the  other  provinces  for  several 
weeks  :  nor  was  it  in  any  degree  general,  till  late 
in  December.  Even  at  that  period,  there  were 
very  large  portions  of  the  country,  particularly  in 
Connaught  and  Munster,  which  were  wholly  free 
from  rebellion,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  the 
lords  justices  to  goad  them  into  it.  Yet  so  early 
as  the  16th  of  February,  1642,  (that  is,  about  two 
months  afterwards)  a  company  of  adventurers 
was  formed  in  London,  who  calculated  on  the 
forfeiture  of  the  whole  island,  except  what  belonged 
to  the  Protestants.  This  extravagant  project  is 
fortunately  recorded,  at  full  length,  in  the  Jour- 
nals of  the  English  House  of  Commons.  These 
adventurers  presented  an  address  to  Parliament, 
stating,  that  when  "the  work  of  reducing  the 
kingdom  of  Ireland"  was  "  finished,"  there  would 
be  "  of  confiscated  lands,  such  as  go  under  the 
name  of  profitable  lands,"  no  less  than  "  TEN 
MILLIONS  OF  ACRES  ! !" 

According  to  Sir  William  Petty's  calculation, 
there  were  but  two-thirds  of  the  surface  of 
Ireland,  which  were  called  "profitable  lands  " 
the  remaining  third  consisting  of  "  highways, 
loughs,  impassable  bogs,  rocks,  shrubs,  and 
coarse  land."69  As  the  whole  contents  of  Ireland 
are  only  about  nineteen  millions  of  acres,  it  is 
clear,  that  nothing  short  of  a  general  extirpation 
of  the  natives,  and  as  general  a  confiscation  of 

69  Petty,  1. 


CONFISCATION.  65 

their  estates,  was  contemplated ;  for,  deducting 
the  "  unprofitable  lands,"  and  the  possessions  of 
the  Protestants,  there  would  not  remain  above  ten 
millions  of  acres.*  This  measure  was  adopted 

February  1,  1641-2. 

*  Proposition  made  by  divers  gentlemen,  citizens ,  and  other 's, 
for  the  speedy  and  effectual  reducing  of  the  kingdom  of  Ire- 
land. 

1st.  They  do  compute,  that  less  than  a  million  of  money 
will  not  perfect  that  work. 

2nd.  They  do  conceive,  that  the  work  being  finished,  there 
will  be  in  that  kingdom,  of  confiscated  lands,  such  as  go  under 
the  name  of  profitable  lands,  ten  millions  of  acres,  English 
measure. 

3d.  That  two  millions  and  a  half  of  those  acres,  to  be  equal- 
ly taken  out  of  the  four  provinces,  will  sufficiently  satisfy  those 
that  shall  advance  this  million  of  money. 

4th.  That  the  two  millions  and  a  half  of  acres  may  be  di- 
vided amongst  them  after  this  proportion,  viz. 

For  each  adventure  of  200/.  a  thousand  acres  in  Ulster. 

300/.  a  thousand  acres  in  Connaught. 
450/.  a  thousand  acres  in  Munster. 
6007.  a  thousand  acres  in  Leinster. 
All  English  measure, 

Consisting  of  meadow,  arable  and  profitable  pasture;  the  bogs, 
woods,  and  barren  mountains,  being  cast  in,  over  and  above. 

These  two  millions  and  a  half  of  acres  to  be  holden  in  free 
and  common  socage  of  the  king,  as  of  his  castle  of  Dublin. 

5th.  That  out  of  these  two  millions  and  a  half  of  acres,  a 
constant  rent  shall  be  reserved  to  the  crown  of  England,  after 
this  proportion,  viz. 

Out  of  each  acre  thereof  in 
Ulster,  1  d. 

Connaught,  1  ob. 

Munster,     -  2  qrs. 

Leinster,     -  3  d. 

Whereby  his  majesty's  revenue,  out  of  those  lands,  will  be 

9 


66  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

from  principles  of  Machiavelian  policy,  to  drive 
the  Catholics  to  desperation,  by  shutting  the  door 
against  all  hopes  of  retreat.  Tyrants  and  con- 
querors, leading  devastating  armies  in  their  train, 
have  often  grasped  at  millions  of  acres:  but, 
throughout  the  wide  range  of  the  history  of  pri- 
vate spoil,  there  is  no  paraUel  case,  except,  per- 
haps, in  Hindostan,  during  the  last  hundred  years. 
Ten  millions  of  acres  to  be  forfeited  !  What  an 
appalling  idea  this  inspires  of  the  deplorable  state 
of  the  victims,  and  the  inhumanity  of  those  who 
offered  them  up  as  holocausts  on  the  altars  of 
rapine  and  bigotry ! 

The  English  Parliament  readily  acquiesced  in 
the  proposal;  and  immediately  passed  an  act,* 
for  the  purpose  of  carrying  it  into  effect.  But, 
as  they  probably  felt  ashamed  to  recognize  the 
extravagant  grasp  at  "  ten  millions  of  acres,"  they 

much  improved,  besides  the  advantage  that  he  will  have,  by 
the  coming  to  his  hands  of  all  other  the  lands  of  the  rebels  and 
their  personal  estates,  without  any  charge  to  his  majesty.70 

*  "  Whereas,  divers  worthy  and  well  affected  persons,  per- 
ceiving that  many  millions  of  acres  of  the  rebels'  lands  of  that 
kingdom,  which  go  under  the  name  of  profitable  lands,  will  bte 
confiscate  and  to  be  disposed  of,  and  that  in  that  case  two  mil- 
lions and  a  half  of  those  acres,  to  be  equally  taken  out  of  the 
four  provinces  of  that  kingdom,  may  be  allotted  for  the  satis- 
faction of  such  persons  as  shall  disburse  any  sums  of  money, 
for  the  reducing  of  the  rebels  there,  which  would  effectually 
accomplish  the  same,  have  made  these  propositions  ensuing," 
Sec.  &c.  as  before.71 

70  Journals,  II.  435.  71  May,  307. 


CONFISCATION.  67 

made  a  slight  variation  in  the  phraseology,  and 
substituted  «  many  millions." 

NOTE  IV.  ON  CHAPTER  II. 

D  P.  35.  The  Courcys,  the  Fitzstephenses,  the 
Fitzgeralds.']  Many  of  the  descendants  of  the 
early  English  settlers,  being  possessed  of  exorbi- 
tant wealth  and  immense  territories,  held  out  to 
the  needy  and  rapacious  deputies,  who  were  sent 
to  rule  Ireland,  stronger  temptations  to  plunder 
than  the  aboriginals ;  and  hence  they  frequently 
experienced  more  dire  oppression  and  cruelty 
than  the  latter. 

One  very  simple  and  very  common  mode  of 
driving  these  great  lords  into  what  was  called  re- 
bellion, but  what  was  merely  affording  the  de- 
puties a  pretence  for  making  war,  and  commit- 
ting depredations  on  them,  was  to  summon  them, 
in  an  arbitrary  manner,  to  appear  before  those 
rulers,  or  in  parliament,  where  they  had  every 
prospect  of  being  seized,  and,  under  false  pre- 
tences, thrown  into  prison,  perhaps  hanged  or 
beheaded  by  martial  law  :*  or,  if  they  were  deter- 
red from  appearing,  they  were  proclaimed  as 
contumacious  traitors,  and  "  the  dogs  of  war"  let 
loose  on  them.  There  are  numberless  cases  of 

*  "  Richard  Bourke,  called  the  Usule  of  Ireland,  was  at 
Castell  ne  Kelly  hanged  by  martial  law,  information  being  there 
given,  that  he  was  confederate  with  the  rebels,  and  under  pre- 
text of  dutiful  obedience,  and  visitation  of  the  governor,  in- 
tended to  betray  him  and  his  company  ."m 

72  Perrot,  95. 


68  VINDICLK    HIBERNICJE. 

this  kind  on  record,  of  which,  when  I  resume  the 
subject,  in  a  subsequent  part  of  this  work,  I  shall 
give  some  of  the  most  striking.  I  confine  myself, 
for  the  present,  to  a  few,  of  which  the  chief  is 
that  of  the  earl  of  Desmond,  whose  large  estates 
held  out  temptations  to  the  rapacity  of  Ralph  De 
Ufford,  lord  justice,  who  administered  the  gp- 
vernment,  under  Edward  III. 

To  this  earl  a  summons  was  sent  to  attend 
parliament,  with  which  he  declined  compliance. 
On  this  sole,  this  miserable  pretext,  the  lord  jus- 
tice immediately  raised  an  army,*  and,  meeting 
with  no  resistance,  seized  all  his  vast  possessions, 

*  "  This  UfFort,  lord  justice,  on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  all  his 
lands,  commanded  the  earl  of  Desmond  to  make  his  personal 
appearance  at  a  parliament  which  he  called  to  be  holden  at 
Dublin,  there  to  begin  the  seventh  of  June;  and,  because 
the  earl  refused  to  come,  according  to  the  summons,  he  raised 
the  king's  standard,  and,  -with  an  army,  marched  into  Munster, 
and  there  seized  the  earl's  possessions  into  the  king's  hands,  let- 
ting them  forth  to  farm,  for  an  annual  rent,  unto  other  persons. 
And,  whilst  he  yet  remained  in  Munster,  he  devised  ways 
how  to  have  the  earl  of  Desmond  apprehended ;  which  being 
brought  to  pass,  he  afterwards  delivered  him  upon  mainprise 
of  these  sureties,  whose  names  ensue:  William  De  Burgh,  earl 
of  Ulster;  James  Butler,  earl  of  Ormond;  Richard  Tute, 
Nicholas  Verdon,  Morice  Rochford,  Eustace  Le  Powre,  Ge- 
rald De  Rochford,  John  Fitzrobert  Powre,  Robert  Barrie, 
Maurice  Fitzgerald,  John  Wellesly,  Walter  Le  Fant,  Richard 
Rokelly,  Henry  Traherne,  Roger  Powre,  John  Lenfant,  Roger 
Powre,  Matthew  Fitzhenrie,  Richard  Wallers,  Edmond  Burgh, 
son  to  the  earl  of  Ulster,  knights  ;  David  Barrie,  William  Fitz- 
gerald, Foulke  De  Fraxinus,  Robert  Fitzmaurice,  Henry 
Fitzberklie,  John  Fitzgeorge  De  Roch,  Thomas  De  Lees  De 
Burgh ;  these  (as  ye  have  heard)  were  bound  for  the  earl. 


CONFISCATION.  69 

and  slaughtered  his  principal  followers.  He  soon 
found  means  to  seize  the  earl  himself,  and 
bound  no  less  than  twenty-seven  of  the  nobility 
and  gentry  as  sureties  for  his  good  behaviour. 
He  afterwards  summoned  the  earl  before  him, 
who,  "  finding  his  severity,  thought  it  dangerous 
to  appear,  according  to  the  condition  of  the  re- 
cognizance, and  therefore  it  was  escheated  into 
the  exchequer."73  Ufford  rapaciously  availed 
himself  of  this  opportunity,  and  seized  the  estates 
of  twenty-three  of  "  the  mainpernors"  according 
to  Hooker,  or  of  eighteen,  according  to  Cox.* 

Besides  these  acts  of  oppression,  "  he  caused 
the  earl  of  Kildare  to  be  arrested,  and  committed 
to  the  castle  of  Dublin  ;"74  indicted  and  imprison- 
ed many  others ;  annulled  a  number  of  charters  ; 
and  "  proceeded  every  way  so  roundly  and  se- 
verely, as  the  nobility,  which  were  wont  to  suffer 
no  controulment,  did  much  distaste  him."75  This 
case  affords  a  proof  how  little  dependence  can 
be  placed  on  the  accounts  given  of  Irish  affairs 
by  English  writers :  for,  of  this  odious  oppres- 
sor, who  was  a  mere  Verres,  and,  according  to 

And  because  he  made  default,  "the  lord  justice  verily  took  the 
advantage  of  the  mainpernors,  four  of  them  only  excepted,  the 
two  earls  and  two  knights."78 

*  "  Though  the  noblemen,  and  some  of  the  knights,  made  a 
shift  to  get  rid  of  this  matter,  yet  eighteen  of  the  knights  lost 
their  estates,  and  rvere  utterly  ruined  thereby"™ 

73  Cox,  121.  74  Davies,  153.  75  Ibid. 

76  Hollinshed,  VI.  255.  "  Cox,  121. 


70  VINDICkE    IIIUKKMC.t  . 

Hollinshed,  "was  very  rigorous,  and,  through 
persuasion  (as  was  said)  of  his  wife,  more  extreme 
and  covetous  than  he  otherwise  would  have 
been,"78  Sir  John  Davies  says,  "  in  troth,  he  was 
a  singular  good  justicer."79  Hollinshed  does 
not  pretend  to  deny  his  severity  and  rigour,  but 
charges  it  wholly  to  the  account  of  his  wife,  who 
was  "  bent  to  prick  him  forward  unto  sharp  deal- 
ings, and  rigorous  proceedings."30  And  further, 
"His  lady,  it  would  appear,  was  verily  but  a 
miserable  woman,  procuring  him  to  EXTORTION 
AND  BRIBERY.""  A  very  novel  and  extraordinary 
trait,  truly,  in  the  character  of  "  a  good  justicer !" 
The  case  of  another  earl  of  Desmond,  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  is  still  more  lament- 
able. Henry  Sydney,  the  lord  deputy,  thirsting 
after  his  immense  possessions,  and  desirous  of 
driving  him  into  rebellion,  seized  him,  under  the 
most  flimsy  pretexts,  and  carried  him  in  duress, 
in  an  extensive  circuit  he  made  through  the 
country.  The  earl  finally  effected  an  escape ; 
and  was  peremptorily  cited  to  appear  before  the 
earl,  and  to  surrender  his  strongest  fortresses. 
The  ignominious  treatment  he  had  experienced, 
and  the  imminent  danger  he  had  escaped,  deter- 
red him  from  confiding  his  person  into  the  de- 
puty's hands.  He  was  accordingly  proclaimed 
a  traitor,  and  his  territories  laid  waste,  with  the 

78  Hollinshed,  VI.  255.  79  Davies,  154. 

90  Hollinshed,  VI.  255.  81  Idem,  256. 


CONFISCATION.  71 

most  Vandalic  rage,  as  shall  be  stated  in  the  next 
note. 

The  injustice  with  which  he  was  treated,  will 
appear  palpable,  from  two  of  the  items  of  the 
proclamation,  by  one  of  which  he  was  charged 
with  seeking  for  foreign  and  domestic  aid  ;*  and, 
by  another,  at  the  same  time,  with  destroying  his 
castles,  and  burning  his  towns,f  "  to  the  intent  her 
majesty's  forces  and  subjects  should  not  be  suc- 
coured nor  refreshed."  / 

It  is  difficult  to  decide  whether  the  wickedness 
or  absurdity  of  these  accusations  is  the  greater. 
If  he  intended  to  enter  into  rebellion,  it  would 
have  been  the  quintessence  of  madness  to  destroy 
his  castles.  The  one  effectually  destroys  the 
other. 

It  does  not  fall  within  my  present  view,  to 
enter  into  detail  on  the  progress  of  this  war. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  earl  was  reduced  to  a 
most  deplorable  state  of  wretchedness ;  finally 
assassinated  in  a  filthy  cabin;  and  his  estate, 
which  consisted  of  five  hundred  and  seventy-four 

*  "  That  he  daily  looketh  for  a  further  aid,  and  a  new  supply 
of  foreigners,  and  daily  soliciteth  the  chief  men  of  the  Irish 
counties  to  join  with  him  in  this,  his  most  execrable  and  re- 
bellious enterprise."83 

f  "  That  he  hath  not  only  refused  to  deliver  up  doctor  San- 
ders and  the  Spaniards,  which  do  daily  accompany  him ;  but 
hath  broken  down  his  castles,  burned  his  towns,  and  desolated 
his  countries  aforehand,  to  the  intent  her  majesty's  forces  and 
subjects  shall  not  be  succoured  nor  refreshed."83 

32  Hooker,  apud  Hollinshed,  424.  83  Ibid. 


72 


VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 


thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty-eight  acres, 
partly  seized  by  government,  and  partly  parcelled 
out  among  the  British  officers,*  who  had  been 
instrumental  in  goading  him  into  resistance. 
When  such  were  the  temptations  to  civil  war, 
and  such  the  rewards  for  the  desolation  perpe- 

*  "  The  earl  of  Desmond  and  his  accomplices  had  forfeited 
a  vast  estate,  amounting  in  all  to  574,628  acres  of  land.  The 
earl  himself  had  a  prodigious  revenue,  for  these  times  ;  and 
perhaps  greater  than  any  other  subject  in  her  majesty's  domi- 
nions."84 

Of  this  immense  estate,  portions  were  bestowed  on  the  fol- 
lowing undertakers  : 


Co.  Waterford,  Sir  Christopher  Hutton 
Co.  Cork  and  Waterford,  Sir  W.  Raleigh 
Co.  Kerry,  Sir  Edward  Denny 
Ib.         Sir  William  Harbart 
Ib.         Charles  Harbart 
Ib.         John  Holly 
Ib.         Capt.  Jenkin  Conway 
Ib.         John  Champion 
Cork,  Sir  Warham  Saint  Lesser 
Ib.     Hugh  Caff 
Ib.     Sir  Thomas  Norris 
Ib.     Arthur  Robins 
Ib.     Arthur  Hide, 

Ib.     Francis  Butcher  and  Hugh  Wirth 
Ib.     Thomas  Say 
Ib.     Arthur  Hyde, 
Ib.     Edmund  Spencer 
Cork  and  Waterford,  Richard  Beacon 
Limerick,  Sir  William  Courtney 
Ib.        Francis  Birkly,  Esq. 
Ib.        Robert  Anslow 


Acres. 

10,910 

12,OOO 
6,OOO 

13,276 
3,768 
4,422 
526 
1,434 
6,000 
6,000 
6,OOO 
1,800 
5,574 

24,OOO 
3,778 

11,766 
3,028 
6,OOO 

1O,500 
7,250 
2,599 


Cox,  392. 


206,631 


OPPRESSION.  73 

trated,  it  cannot  surprise  us,  that  Ireland  was  a 
constant  theatre  of  rapine,  conflagration,  and  de- 
vastation. 

Sometimes  the  parents  of  the  ill-fated  vic- 
tims, thus  hunted  down,  were  seized,  and  thrown 
into  dungeons,  as  accomplices  of  the  crimes,  real 
or  pretended,  of  their  children.  The  case  of  Sir 
Walter  De  La  Hide  and  his  lady  is  a  striking  one. 
They  were,  on  account  of  the  rebellion  of  their 
son,  imprisoned  and  crueUy  treated.  The  lady 
was  basely  tampered  with,  and  threatened  with  the 
rack,*  in  order  to  induce  her  to  accuse  her  hus- 

206,631 

Limerick,  Richard  and  Alex.  Fitton  3,026 

Ib.        Edmund  Mamvaring,  Esq.  3,747 

Ib.        Waterford,  Inverary,  Sir  Edward  Fitton  11,515 

Ib.        Wm.  Trenchard,  Esq.  12,OOO 

Ib.         George  Thornton,  Esq.        -  1,500 

Ib.         Sir  George  Bourcher,  12,880 

Ib.        Henry  Billingsley,  Esq.       -  11,800 

Inverary,  Thomas,  Earl  of  Ormond    -        -^.^--(l?  3,000 


259,49985 

*  "  Sir  Walter  De  La  Hide,  knight,  and  his  wife,  the  lady 
Gennet  Eustace,  were  apprehended,  and  brought  as  prisoners, 
by  master  Brabson,  vice-treasurer,  from  their  town  of  Moi- 
clare,  to  the  castle  of  Dublin,  because  their  son  and  heir,  James 
De  La  Hide,  -was  the  only  brewer  of  all  this  rebellion  ;  who,  as 
the  governor  suspected,  was  set  on  by  his  mother.  The  knight 
and  his  wife,  lying  in  duress  for  the  space  of  twelve  months, 
were  at  several  times  examined,  and  notwithstanding  all  pre- 
sumptions and  surmises  that  could  be  gathered,  they  -were  in 
the  end  found  guiltless  of  their  son  his  folly.  But  the  lady 

85  Cox,  393. 
10 


74  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC^E. 

band !  and  finally,  worn  down  with  savage  treat- 
ment, she  died  in  prison,  of  a  broken  heart.  But 
the  rage  and  malice  of  her  persecutor  followed 
her  even  after  death.  He,  for  a  time,  denied  her 
corpse  interment,  declaring,  that  the  carcase  of 
the  mother  of  such  a  traitor  ought  rather  to  be 
thrown  out  on  a  dung-hill,  for  ravens  and  dogs, 
than  to  have  Christian  burial. 

NOTE  V.  ON  CHAPTER  II. 

E  P.  36.  Remorseless  cruelty. ~]  The  barbarity 
with  which  the  English  deputies  pursued  the 
natives,  the  depredations  they  perpetrated,  and 
the  havoc  they  made  of  the  human  species,  will 
stand  a  fair  comparison  with  the  desolation  per- 

was  had  in  examination  apart,  and  enticed  by  means  to  charge 
her  husband  -with  her  son  his  rebellion,  who,  being  not  won 
thereto,  with  all  the  means  that  could  be  wrought,  -was  menaced 
to  be  put  to  death,  or  TO  BE  RACK'T,  and  so  with  extremity  to 
be  compelled,  whereas  with  gentleness  she  could  not  be  allured 
to  acknowledge  these  apparent  treasons,  that  neither  her  hus- 
band nor  she  could,  without  great  show  of  impudence,  deny. 
"  The  gentlewoman,  -with  these  continual  storms  heart-bro- 
ken, deceased  in  the  castle :  from  thence  her  body  was  removed 
unto  the  gray  friars,  with  the  deputy  his  commandment,  that 
it  should  not  be  interred,  until  his  pleasure  were  further  known; 
adding  withal,  that  the  carcase  of  one  who  was  the  mother  of  so 
arrant  an  arch-traitor,  ought  rather  to  be  cast  out  on  a  dunghill, 
to  be  carrion  for  ravens  and  dogs  to  gnaw  upon,  than  to  be  laid 
in  any  Christian  grave.  The  corpse  lying  four  or  five  days  in 
this  plight,  at  the  request  of  the  lady  Gennet  Golding,  wife  to 
Sir  John  White,  the  governor  licensed  that  it  should  be  bu- 
ried."86 

86  Hooker,  apud  Hollinshed,  VI.  302. 


DESOLATION.  75 

petrated  by  any  of  the  destroyers  of  mankind,  in 
any  age  or  nation.  The  conflagration  of  all  the 
towns  and  villages,  as  far  as  their  power  extend- 
ed, the  waste  of  every  thing  that  could  minister 
to  the  sustenance  of  human  life,*  and  the  indis- 

*  "  The  next  dale  following  being  the  twelfe  of  March,  the 
lord  justice  and  the  earle  divided  their  armie  into  two  several 
companies  by  two  ensigns  and  three  together,  the  lord  justice 
taking  the  one  side,  and  the  other  taking  the  other  side  of 
Slewlougher,  and  so  they  searched  the  -woods,  burned  the 
towne,  and  killed  that  date  about  foure  hundred  men,  and  re- 
turned the  same  night  -with  all  the  cat  tell  which  they  found 
that  day. 

"  And  the  said  lords,  being  not  satisfied  -with  this  dale's 
service,  they  did  likewise  the  next  daie  divide  themselves, 
spoiled  and  consumed  the  whole  countrie  until  it  -was  night."81 

"  They  passed  over  the  same  into  Conilo,  where  the  lord 
justice  and  the  earl  of  Ormond  divided  their  companies,  and 
as  they  marched,  they  burned  and  destroyed  the  country  ;  and 
they  both  that  night  encamped  within  one  mile  at  Kilcolman."68 

"  Great  were  the  .services  which  these  garrisons  performed  : 
for  Sir  Richard  Pierce  and  captain  George  Flower,  with  their 
troopes,  left  neither  corn  nor  home,  nor  house  unburnt,  between 
Kinsale  and  Ross.  Captain  Roger  Harvie,  who  had  with  him 
his  brother,  captain  Gawen  Harvie,  captain  Francis  Slingsbie, 
captain  William  Stafford,  with  their  companies  of  the  Lord 
Barry  and  the  treasurer,  with  the  President's  horse,  did  the 
like  between  Ross  and  Bantry."89 

"  Immediately,  and  within  an  hour  after  this  proclamation, 
the  countess  of  Desmond  came  to  the  camp  j  but  the  camp 
was  before  dislodged  from  the  town,  and  all  his  country  forth- 
rvith  consumed  with  Jire,  and  nothing  was  spared  thatjire  and 
sword  could  consume"*0 

87  Hollinshed,  VI.  43O.  88  Ibid. 

89  Pacata  Hibernia,  645.  90  Hollinshed,  VI.  424. 


76  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

criminate  slaughter  of  man,  woman,  and  child,* 
are  recorded  by  themselves,  if  not  as  acts  of  he- 
roism and  glory,  at  least  as  mere  matters  of 
course. 

"  Some  were  slain  of  the  lord  governor's  men,  though 
not  so  many,  amongst  whom  captain  Zouches  trumpeter  was 
one ;  which  so  grieved  the  lord  general,  that  he  commanded  all 
the  houses,  towns,  and  villages,  in  that  country,  and  about  Le- 
finnen,  which  in  any  way  did  belong  to  the  earl  of  Desmond, 
or  of  any  of  his  friends  and  followers,  to  be  burned  and 
spoiled.™ 

"  Hereupon  Sir  Charles,  with  the  English  regiments,  over- 
ran all  Beare  and  Bantry,  destroying  all  that  they  could  jind 
meet  for  the  relief  of  men,  so  as  that  country  was  wholly 
wasted."**  ^ 

*  "  And  as  they  went,  they  drove  the  whole  country  before 
them  unto  the  ventrie,  and  by  that  means  they  preyed  and  took 
all  the  cattle  in  the  country,  to  the  number  of  eight  thousand 
kine,  besides  horses,  garrons,  sheep,  and  goats,  and  all  such 
people  as  they  met,  they  did  without  mercy  put  to  the  sword ; 
by  these  means,  the  whole  country  having  no  cattle  nor  kine 
left,  they  were  driven  to  such  extremities,  that  for  want  of 
victuals  they  were  either  to  die  and  perish  for  famine,  or  to 
die  under  the  sword."93 

"  The  soldiers,  likewise,  in  the  camp,  were  so  hot  upon  the 
spur,  and  sd  eager  upon  tlv?  vile  rebels,  that  that  day  they 
spared  neither  man,  woman,  nor  child,  but  all  was  committed  to 
the  sword"94 

"  The  next  morning  being  the  fourth  of  January,  1602,  Sir 
Charles  coming  to  seek  the  enemy  in  their  camp,  he  entered 
into  their  quarter  without  resistance,  where  he  found  nothing 
but  hurt  and  sick  men,  whose  pains  and  lives  by  the  soldiers 
were  both  determined"'*5 

91  Hollinshed,  VI.  425.  92  Pacata  Hibernia,  659. 

63  Hollinshed,  427.  94  Idem,  430. 

95  Pacata  Hibernia,  659. 


DESOLATION.  77 

And,  from  the  scenes  recorded  by  Hooker, 
Spencer,  and  Cox,  ihrnay  be  said,  without  exag- 
geration, that  Ireland,  for  a  long  period,  was  lite- 
rally a  great  human  slaughter-house,  where  the 
natives  were  hunted  down  and  butchered  like  so 
many  wild  beasts,  and  where  many  of  the  rulers 
appeared  under  as  hideous  an  aspect  as  was  ever 
displayed  in  any  country,  or  at  any  period.  Should 
this  declaration  appear  to  the  reader  too  highly 
coloured,  he  has  only  to  read  the  annexed  proofs, 
to  remove  all  his  doubts. 

The  wanton  and  wicked  destruction  of  the 
fruits  of  the  earth,  expressly  ordered  and  carried 
into  effect  to  produce  famine,  was  as  fatal  to  the 
Irish,  as  the  havoc  made  of  the  human  species  in 
the  field  of  battle,  or  on  the  defenceless  of  both 
sexes  and  every  age,  throughout  their  caverns 
and  hiding-places,  where  they  were  remorselessly 
pursued.  It  fulfilled  the  intentions  of  the'  victors, 
and  created  a  most  deplorable  famine,  whereby 
scenes  of  misery  were  produced,  of  which  the 
examples  are  rare.*  The  natives  were  driven, 

"  Captain  Francis  Slingsby,  with  five  hundred  foot,  burned, 
preyed,  and  destroyed  Owny  O'Mulrian's  country,  and  did  the 
like  to  East  Clanwilliam,  Arloghwood's,  and  Muskeykwick, 

and  KILLED  EVERY  SOUL  HE  FOUND  THERE."96 

*  "  They  performed  that  service  effectually,  and  brought  the 
rebels  to  so  low  a  condition,  that  they  scnv  three  children  eating 
the  entrails  of  their  dead  mother,  upon  whose  flesh  they  had 
fed  twenty  days,  and  roasted  it  by  a  slow  fire  ;  and  it  was  a 

9<5.Cox,  434. 


78  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC^E. 

as  Hooker  states,  not  only  to  eat  horses,  dogs, 
and  dead  carrion,  but  human  flesh,  and  even  to 
take  carcasses  from  their  graves.*  It  is  a  fact 

manifest,  that  some  older  people  had  been  in  that  starving  con- 
dition, that  they  murdered  and  eat  children,  for  a  long  time 
together,  and  were  at  last  discovered  and  executed  for  that 
barbarity.  In  short,  the  famine  of  Jerusalem  did  net  exceed 
that  amongst  the  rebels  of  Ireland"9'' 

*  "  And  as  for  the  great  companies  of  soldiers,  gallowglas- 
ses,  kerne,  and  the  common  people,  who  followed  this  rebellion, 
the  numbers  of  them  are  infinite,,  whose  bloods  the  earth  drank 
up,  and  whose  carcasses  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  the  ravening 
beasts  of  the  field  did  consume  and  devour.  After  this  followed 
an  extreme  famine :  and  such  whom  the  sword  did  not  destroy, 
the  same  did  consume  and  eat  out ;  very  few  or  none  remaining 
alive,  excepting  such  as  were  fled  over  into  England :  and  yet 
the  store  in  the  towns  was  far  spent,  and  they  in  distress,  al- 
beit nothing  like  in  comparison  to  them  who  lived  at  large  ; 
for  they  were  not  only  driven  to  eat  horses,  dogs,  and  dead  car- 
rions ;  but  also  did  devour  the  carcasses  of  dead  men,  whereof 
there  be  sundry  examples  ;  namely,  one  in  the  county  of  Cork, 
where,  -when  a  malefactor  was  executed  to  death,  and  his  body 
left  upon  the  gallows,  certain  poor  people  secretly  came,  took  him 
down,  and  did  eat  him;  likewise  in  the  bay  of  Smeereweeke,  or 
St.  Marieweeke,  the  place  which  was  first  seasoned  with  this 
rebellion,  there  happened  a  ship  to  be  there  lost,  through  foul 
weather,  and  all  the  men  being  drowned,  were  there  cast  on 
land. 

"  The  common  people,  who  had  a  long  time  lived  on  lim- 
pets, orewads,  and  such  shell-fish  as  they  could  find,  and  which 
were  now  spent ;  as  soon  as  they  saw  these  bodies,  they  took 
them  up,  and  most  greedily  did  eat  and  devoure  them  :  and  not 
long  after,  death  and  famine  did  eat  and  consume  them.  The 
land  itselfe,  which  before  those  wars  was  populous,  well  inha- 
bited, and  rich  in  all  the  good  blessings  of  God,  being  plente- 

97  Cox,  449. 


DESOLATION.  79 

worthy  of  observation,  that  Spencer  coolly  and 
deliberately  proposed  a  plan  for  reducing  the 
country,  by  the  introduction  of  a  new  famine, 
which  would  force  the  natives  "  to  devour  one  an- 
other"* and  renew  the  horrible  scenes  that  had 

ous  of  corne,  full  of  cattell,  well  stored  with  fish  and  sundrie 
other  good  commodities,  is  now  become  -waste  and  barren, 
yielding  no  fruits,  the  pastures  no  cattell,  the  fields  no  corne, 
the  aire  no  birds,  the  seas  (though  full  of  fish)  yet  to  them 
yielding  nothing.  Finallie,  every  waie  the  curse  of  God  was 
so  great,  and  the  land  so  barren  both  of  man  and  beast,  that 
whosoever  did  travell  from  the  one  end  to  the  other  of  all 
Munster,  even  from  Waterford  to  the  head  of  Smeerweeke, 
which  is  about  six  score  miles,  he  -would  not  meet  ante  man, 
•woman,  or  child,  saving  in  townes  and  cities ;  nor  yet  see  anie 
beast,  but  the  very  wolves,  the  foxes,  and  other  like  ravening 
beasts  ;  many  of  them  laie  dead,  being  famished,  and  the  re- 
sidue gone  elsewhere."98 

*  "  The  end  will  (I  assure  me)  bee  very  short,  and  much 
sooner  than  it  can  be  in  so  great  a  trouble,  as  it  seemeth  hoped 
for,  although  there  should  none  of  them  fall  by  the  sword,  nor 
bee  slain  by  the  souldiour ;  yet  thus  being  kept  from  manu- 
rance,  and  their  cattle  from  running  abroad,  by  this  hard  re- 
straint they  would  quietly  consume  themselves,  and  devour e  one 
another ;  the  proofe  whereof  I  saw  sufficiently  in  these  late 
warres  of  Munster ;  for  notwithstanding'  that  the  same  -was  a 
most  rich  and  plentiful  countrey,  full  of  corn  and  cattle,  that 
you  would  have  thought  they  should  have  been  able  to  stand 
long,  yet  in  one  yeare  and  a  halfe  they  were  brought  to  such 
-wretchednesse,  as  that  any  stony  heart  -would  have  rued  the 
same.  Out  of  every  corner  of  the  -woods  and glynnes  they  came 
creeping  forth  upon  their  handes,  for  their  legges  could  not 
beare  them  ;  they  looked  like  anatomies  of  death  ;  they  spake 
like  ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves ;  they  did  eate  the  dead 
carrions,  happy  -where  they  could  find  them,  yea,  and  one  an- 

98  Hollinshed,  VI.  459. 


80  VINDICL2E    HIBERNIC^E. 

taken  place  during,  and  subsequent  to,  the  hosti- 
lities against  the  earl  of  Desmond  and  his  adhe- 
rents, of  which  he  draws  such  a  hideous  picture 
as  makes  the  hair  stand  on  end.  There  is  no- 
thing in  the  horrors  of  the  French  revolution,  to 
exceed  the  calamitous  events  of  this  war  of  exter- 
mination. 

NOTE  VI.  ON  CHAPTER  II. 

F  P.  36.  Better  suited  incarnate  demons."]  To 
palliate  those  enormities,  of  which  the  pre- 
ceding notes  afford  some  slight  specimens,  and 
to  prove  that  the  Irish  were  undeserving  of  any 
other  fate  than  what  they  suffered,  the  English 
writers  have  exhausted  the  powers  of  language, 
in  their  reprobation  and  reproaches  of  the  nation. 
From  their  accounts,  it  would  appear  that  they 
"were  among  the  worst  of  the  human  species,* 

other  soone  after,  insomuch  as  the  very  carcasses  they  spared 
not  to  scrape  out  of  their  graves  ;  and  if  they  found  a  plot  of 
water-cresses  or  shamrocks,  there  they  flocked  as  to  a  feast 
for  the  time  ;  yet  not  able  long  to  continue  therewithall ;  that 
in  short  space  there  were  none  almost  left,  ana  a  most  popu- 
lous and  plentiful  country  SUDDAINLY  LEFT  VOYDE 
OF  MAN  AND  BEAST."99 

*  "  And  here  you  may  see  the  nature  and  disposition  of  this 
wicked,  effrenated,  barbarous,  and  unfaithful  nation,  who  (as 
Cambrensis  writeth  of  them)  they  are  a  wicked  and  perverse 
generation,  constant  in  that  they  be  always  inconstant,  faithful 
in  that  they  be  always  unfaithful,  trusty  in  that  they  be  always 

99  Spencer,  165. 


CALUMNY.  81 

and  combined  together  nearly  all  the  bad  quali- 
ties of  all   other  nations.      Among   the   most 

treacherous  and  untrusty.  They  do  nothing  but  imagine  mis- 
chief, and  have  no  delight  in  any  good  thing.  They  are  always 
working  wickedness  against  the  good,  and  such  as  be  quiet  in 
the  land.  Their  mouths  are  full  of  unrighteousness,  and  their 
tongues  speak  nothing  but  curses.  Their  feet  are  swift  to  shed 
blood,  and  their  hands  imbrued  in  the  blood  of  innocents.  The 
ways  of  peace  they  know  not,  and  in  the  paths  of  righteousness 
they  walk  not.  God  is  not  known  in  their  land ;  neither  is 
his  name  called  rightly  upon  among  them  :  their  queen  and 
sovereign  they  obey  not ;  and  her  government  they  allow  not : 
but  as  much  as  in  them  lieth,  do  resist  her  imperial  crown  and 
dignity.  It  was  not  much  above  a  year  past,  that  captain  Gil- 
bert with  the  sword  so  persecuted  them,  and  in  justice  so  exe- 
cuted them,  that  then  they  in  all  humbleness  submitted  them- 
selves, craved  pardon,  and  swore  to  be  for  ever  true  and  obe- 
dient ;  for  such  a  perverse  nature  they  are  of,  that  they  will  be 
no  longer  honest  and  obedient,  than  that  they  cannot  be  suf- 
fered to  be  rebels.  Such  is  their  stubbornness  and  pride,  that 
with  a  continual  fear  it  must  be  bridled ;  and  such  is  the  hard- 
ness of  their  hearts,  that  with  the  rod  it  must  still  be  chastised 
and  subdued  j  for  no  longer  fear,  no  longer  obedience ;  and  no 
longer  than  they  be  ruled  with  severity,  no  longer  will  they  be 
dutiful  and  in  subjection ;  but  will  5e,  as  they  were  before, 
false,  truce-breakers,  and  traitorous.  Being  not  much  unlike 
to  mercury,  called  quicksilver,  which  let  it  by  art  be  ne'er  so 
much  altered  and  transposed,  yea  and  with  fire  consumed  to 
ashes  j  yet  let  it  but  rest  awhile  untouched,  nor  meddled  with, 
it  will  return  again  to  its  own  nature,  and  be  the  same  as  it 
was  at  the  first :  and  even  so,  daily  experience  teacheth  it  to 
be  true,  in  these  people.  For  -withdraw  the  sword,  and  for- 
bear correction,  deal  with  them  in  courtesie,  and  intreat  them 
gently,  if  they  can  take  any  advantage,  they  will  surely  skip 
out;  and  as  the  dog  to  his  vomit,  and  the  sow  to  the  dirt  and 

11 


82  V1ND1CIJE    II1BERNICJE. 

f 

rancorous  and  envenomed  of  those  calumniators, 
Giraldus  Cambrensis  and  Hooker  claim  a  distin- 
guished place. 

puddle,  they  will  return  to  their  old  and  former  insolence,  re- 
bellion, and  disobedience."101 

101  Hooker,  apud  Hollinshed,  VI.  369. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Subject  continued.  Subornation.  One  thousand 
bills  of  indictment  found  in  two  days.  Confis- 
cation on  a  large  scale. 

"  Wo  to  them  that  devise  iniquity,  because  it  is  in  the  power  of  their 
hand ;  and  they  covet  fields,  and  take  them  by  violence ;  and  houses,  and  take 
them  away :  so  they  oppress  a  man  and  his  house,  even  a  man  and  his  heri- 
tage."———Micah  ii.  1,  2. 

I  DO  not  pretend  that  all  the  depositions  carry 
their  own  condemnation  indelibly  stamped  on 
their  foreheads,  like  those  quoted  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter.  No :  it  would  be  very  extraor- 
dinary indeed,  if,  among  the  army  of  perjurers, 
who  were  suborned  for  the  purpose  of  swearing 
away  the  lives  of  the  pre-condemned  Irish,  there 
were  none  who  could  frame  a  consistent  story. 
But  there  is  so  much  of  undeniable  fraud,  and 
falsehood,  and  perjury  established  in  the  evi- 
dence, as  to  discredit  the  whole.  He  who  swears 
that  a  man  was  "cw£,  and  hacked,  and  his  entrails 
taken  out,  without  bleeding"102  must  be  a  perjurer : 
but  it  does  not  thence  follow,  that  he  would  have 
been  other  than  a  perjurer,  had  he  omitted  the 
miraculous  part  of  the  story. 

102  Temple,  88. 


84  V1NDICI&   HIBERNIC&. 

I  said,  "  suborned  for  the  purpose  of  swearing 
away  the  lives  of  the  Irish."  This  is  not  a  rhe- 
torical flourish,  calculated  to  delude  or  to  deceive 
the  reader.  It  is  a  melancholy  and  heart-rending 
truth,  that  such  was  the  depraved  and  deplorable 
state  of  the  morality  of  the  administration  in  Ire- 
land, that  money  was  lavished  to  purchase  evi- 
dence for  the  nefarious  purpose  above  stated. 
And  so  barefacedly  and  profligately  was  this  trade 
of  corruption  carried  on, — so  totally  lost  were 
the  privy  council  to  all  sense  of  principle  and 
decency, — and  so  well  was  their  character  esta- 
blished on  this  point,  that  one  of  the  agents  em- 
ployed in  the  business  of  subornation,  actually 
applied  to  them,  in  their  public  capacity,  for  the 
wages  of  his  iniquity.  This  single  fact,  establish- 
ed on  the  unimpeachable  evidence  of  the  duke  of 
Ormond,*  would  of  itself  be  sufficient  to  induce 

*  "  Indictments  had  been  found  against  them"  [Lord  Dunsa- 
ny,  Sir  John  Netterville,  and  other  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of 
high  standing]  "  and  ABOVE  A  THOUSAND  OTHERS,  by  a  grand 
jury,  IN  THE  SPACE  OF  TWO  DAYS.  There  was  certainly  too 
much  hurry  in  the  finding  of  these  indictments,  (of  which  above 
three  thousand  were  upon  record)  to  allow  time  for  the  exami- 
nation of  each  particular  case,  and  they  were  too  generally 
found  upon  very  slight  evidence.  The  Roman  Catholics  com- 
plained that  there  were  strange  practices  used  with  the  jurors, 
menaces  to  some^  promises  of  rewards,  AND  PARTS  OF  THE 
FORFEITED  ESTATES  ',  and  though  great  numbers  of  the  indict- 
ed persons  might  be  really  guilty,  there  was  too  much  reason 
given  to  suspect  the  evidence.  I  am  the  more  inclined  to  sus- 
pect there  was  a  good  deal  of  corruption  and  iniquity  in  the 
methods  of  gaining  the  indictments^  because  I  find  a  very  re- 


SUBORNATION.  85 

the  world,  in  any  other  history  than  that  of  Ire- 
land,  to  reject  the  whole  of  the  evidence,  even  if 
it  extended  to  one  hundred  folio  volumes,  instead 
of  thirty-two,  which  are  swelled  to  this  immode- 
rate extent,  by  silly  tales  of  what  "this  body 
heard  another  body  say."103  But  the  history  of 
Ireland  is  an  exception  to  all  the  general  rules  on 
the  subject  of  history.  The  allegations  against 
the  Irish  have  been  so  often  reiterated, — so  deep- 
rooted  has  been  the  hatred  excited  against  the 
nation,  and  so  deplorable  has  been  the  credulity 
of  the  world  on  this  topic,  that  a  fabulous  tale, 
resting  wholly  on  such  incongruities  and  absurdi- 
ties as  we  have  seen,  has  been  adopted,  without 
investigation,  by  nine-tenths  of  those  who  have 
written  on  English  or  Irish  affairs  :  and  there  are 
in  this  country,  as  well  as  in  England,  many,  even 
among  those  who  pride  themselves  on  the  extent 
of  their  reading,  who  are  so  far  duped  as  to  give 
as  implicit  credit  to  the  story  of  the  hundred  and 
fifty-four  thousand  murdered  in  Ulster  alone  in 

markable  memorandum  made  by  the  marquis  of  Ormond,  in 
his  own  writing,  of  a  passage  in  the  Council,  on  April  23, 1643. 
There  was  then  a  letter  read  at  the  Board,  from  a  person  who 
claimed  a  great  merit  to  himself,  in  getting  some  hundreds  of 
gentlemen  indicted,  and  the  rather  for  that  he  had  laid  out  sums 
of  money  to  procure  witnesses  to  give  evidence  to  a  jury,  for 
the  finding  those  indictments.  This  was  an  intimate  friend  of 
Sir  William  Parsons,  and  might  very  well  know  that  such 
methods  would  be  approved  by  him."104 

103  Warner,  146.  104  Carte,  I.  423. 


86  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

three  months,  as  to  the  account  of  the  revolution 
of  1688,  or  the  accession  of  the  Hanoverian  fa- 
mily to  the  throne  of  England. 

I  trust  the  reader  will  well  weigh,  and  ponder 
on,  the  naked  detail  contained  in  the  preceding 
note,  which  exhibits  a  scene  of  atrocity  unparal- 
leled in  the  history  of  fraud,  forgery,  and  perjury. 
What  a  stupendous,  what  a  sickening  fact  is  the 
finding  of  one  thousand  bills  of  indictment  in  two 
days !  And,  be  it  observed,  these  bills  were  prin- 
cipally against  the  wealthy  classes,  the  "  noble- 
men, gentlemen,  and  freeholders."105  These  were 
the  men  whom  it  was  worth  while  to  indict, 
men  whose  estates  would  recompense  the  trou- 
ble, pay  for  the  subornation  of  hired  witnesses, 
and  sate  the  avarice  of  the  prime  movers  of  the 
business. 

Above  one  thousand  bills  of  indictment  in  two 
days  !  Suppose  the  jury  sat  twelve  hours  in  each 
day,  from  six  in  the  morning  till  six  in  the  even- 
ing, without  obeying  any  of  the  calls  of  hunger, 
it  was  at  the  rate  of  forty-two  bills  in  an  hour, 
or  two  every  three  minutes.  Well  may  Carte 
observe,  that  they  did  not  "  allow  time  for  the 
examination  of  each  particular  case."  This  is  a 
most  feeble  mode  of  stating  the  affair,  which  he 
ought  to  have  stigmatized  in  terms  of  the  strong- 
est reprobation.  He  might  have  said,  and  with 
perfect  truth,  that  they  did  not  "  allow  time  to 

105  Carte,  I.  454. 


SUBORNATION.  87 

read  the  bills,  and  little  more  than  was  necessary 
to  sign  them."  They  must  have  been  huddled 
over  en  masse,  barely  reading  the  titles,  mark- 
ing them  true  bills,  (how  true,  heaven  knows) 
and  annexing  the  names  of  the  jurors. 

And  these  bills  of  indictment — (who  can  read 
the  fact  without  shuddering?) — decided  on  the 
lives  and  fortunes  of  the  principal  of  the  "  nobili- 
ty, gentry,  and  freeholders"  of  Ireland,  of  whom, 
on  these,  and  indictments  equally  just  and  honour- 
able, "  two  thousand  were  prosecuted  to  outlawry 
by  Sir  Philip  Percival,  clerk  of  the  crown,"106 
and  their  estates  confiscated. 

Will  it  be  deemed  extravagant,  to  assert  that 
the  annals  of  the  world  can  produce  no  similar 
circumstance, — and  that  never  was  rampant  and 
profligate  injustice  so  completely  triumphant  ? 
This  was  the  time,  when,  in  those  halls  nick- 
named courts  of  justice,  "  the  benches,"  (to  use 
the  strong  and  energetic  language  of  the  duke  of 
Ormond,  in  his  speech  to  the  Irish  Parliament) 
-  were  crowded  or  oppressed  with  the  throng 
»  and  wicked-height  of  those  who  ought  rather  to 
have  stood  manacled  at  the  bar."107  How  deplo- 
rable the  case  of  a  noble  nation,  exposed  to  the 
"  tender  mercies"  of  such  juries  and  such  judges  ! 

I  intended  to  have  closed  this  chapter  with  the 
above  paragraph ;  but  it  appears  that  some  fur- 
ther reflections  are  demanded  on  the  subject.  It 

100  Carte,  I.  454.  107  Borlase,  App.  84. 


88  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

\ 

may  not  be  improper,  indeed  it  appears  indis- 
pensable, to  consider  what  is  the  nature  of  a  bill 
of  indictment,  what  are  the  duties  of  a  grand  jury 
who  are  to  decide  on  it,  and  what  are  its  conse- 
quences ?  Answers  to  these  inquiries  will  bring 
the  subject  so  fully  before  the  reader,  as  to 
awaken  him  to  the  true  character  of  the  proce- 
dure which  has  occupied  the  chief  place  in  this 
chapter. 

According  to  Jacob's  Law  Dictionary,  "An  in- 
dictment is  an  inquisition  taken  and  made  by 
twelve  men  at  the  least,  who  are  thereunto  sworn, 
whereby  they  find  and  present  that  such  a  person, 
of  such  a  place,  in  such  a  county,  and  of  such  a 
degree,  hath  committed  such  a  treason,  felony, 
trespass,  or  other  offence,  against  the  peace  of  the 
king,  his  crown,  and  dignity."108 

The  accusation  is  delivered  to  the  grand  jury, 
who  are  SWORN  to  determine  on  the  probable 
guilt  or  innocence  of  the  party  accused,  according 
to  the  evidence  brought  by  the  proper  officer  to 
support  the  charge. 

Could  the  jury,  who  thus  found  trrcKhousand 
bills  of  indictment  in  two  days,  have  heard  the 
evidence  ?  Certainly  not.  Did  they  not  there- 
fore violate  their  oaths  ?  Yes.  What  were  they 
then  ?  Perjurers.  Was  not  the  blood  of  every 
man,  whom  then-  perjury  led  to  the  scaffold,  on 
their  heads  ?  Indubitably. 

108  Jacob,  III.  401. 


MARTIAL  LAW.  89 

Were  not  the  judges  under  oath  to  administer 
justice  correctly  ?  When  they  received  such  bills, 
were  they  not  likewise  perjured  ?  Was  not  the 
blood  of  the  victims  equally  to  be  laid  to  their 
charge?  Most  assuredly. 

In  ordinary  cases,  the  perjuries  of  grand  juries, 
however  flagitious,  are  of  no  great  importance, 
but  as  respects  their  own  guilt,  provided  the  tra- 
verse juries  be  upright  and  independent.  "Not  so 
in  that  horrible  age  of  perjury.  There  was  hardly 
any  traverse  jury  used :  for  the  dread  of  the  rack, 
and  the  exercise  of  martial  law,*  had  so  terrified 
the  Roman  Catholics,  that  they  did  not  dare  to 
venture  into  Dublin,f  which  was  a  complete  den 
of  murder. 

*  "  The  prisons  of  that  city  [Dublin]  were  now  filled  with 
prisoners  :  and,  as  the  government  increased  in  strength,  were 
likely  to  be  more  crowded  every  day.  It  was  troublesome, 
chargeable,  and  inconvenient  to  keep  them,  because  of  the  con- 
sumption which  it  occasioned  of  victuals  ;  which  were  already 
grown  very  scarce,  and  their  numbers  might  prove  dangerous, 
for  which  reason  the  lords  justices  resolved  to  thin  them.  It 
was  difficult,  or  rather  impossible,  for  want  of  freeholders,  to 
find  juries  in  the  proper  counties  where  the  crimes  were  acted ; 
so  that  there  was  no  bringing  these  persons  to  a  legal  trial.  In 
this  necessity,  it  was  determined  to  cause  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  them  to  be  executed  by  martial  law."109 

f  "  It  was  certainly  a  miserable  spectacle,  to  see  every  day 
numbers  of  people  executed  by  martial  law,  at  the  discretion,  or 
rather  caprice,  of  Sir  Charles  Coote,  a  hot-headed  and  bloody 
man,  and  as  such  accounted  even  by  the  English  and  Protes- 
tants. Yet  this  was  the  man  whom  the  lords  justices  picked 

109  Carte,  I.  278. 
12 


90  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

«  • 

This  inference  further  follows,  from  the  strong 
and  unequivocal  circumstance,  that  of  three  thou- 
sand persons  indicted,  as  above  stated,  by  Sir  Phi- 
lip Percival,  there  were  two-thirds  who  did  not 
appear,  and  were  prosecuted  to  outlawry  in  then- 
absence.*  Thus,  for  those  two  thousand  men, 
there  was  no  more  use  of  a  traverse  jury  than  if 
no  such  body  ever  existed. 

Would  that  I  had  the  tongue  of  a  Demosthenes, 
or  a  Curran,  or  a  Henry,  or  the  pen  of  a  Burke 
or  a  Dickinson,  to  spread  this  truth  before  an 
astounded  world,  that,  on  this  species  of  evidence, 
one  foul,  bloated  mass  of  fraud  and  perjury,  rests 
the  thousand-times-told  story  of  "  the  execrable 
Irish  Rebellion."  The  man  who,  knowing  theSe 

out  to  entrust  with  a  commission  of  martial  law,  to  put  to 
death  rebels  and  traitors,  that  is,  all  such  as  he  should  deem 
to  be  so ;  which  he  performed  with  delight,  and  a  wanton  kind 
of  cruelty  :  and  yet,  all  this  while,  the  justices  sat  in  council ; 
and  the  judges,  in  the  usual  season,  sat  in  their  respective 
courts,  spectators  of,  and  countenancing,  so  extravagant  a  tri- 
bunal as  Sir  Charles  Coote's,  and  so  illegal  an  execution  of 
justice."110 

*  "  Whatever  difficulties  there  were  in  the  case,  the  lords 
justices  were  equal  to  them  all ;  and  carried  on  the  prosecution 
with  great  vigour,  causing  indictments  to  be  preferred  not  only 
against  open  and  declared  rebels,  but  also  against  others  -who 
•were  barely  suspected:  and,  as  there  was  nobody  to  make  de- 
fence, nor  any  great  delicacy  used,  either  in  the  choice  of  the 
jury,  or  in  the  character  and  credit  of  the  -witnesses,  and  one 
witness  sufficed,  such  indictments  were  readily  found.mn 

110  Castlehaven,  apud  Carte,  I.  279.        1U  Carte,  I, 


MANDEVILLE,  MTJNCHAUSEN,  AND  TEMPLE.       91 

things,  gives  credit  to  the  fable,  ought  to  be  con- 
fined for  life  to  the  edifying  perusal  of  the  voy- 
ages and  travels  of  Sir  John  Mandeville,  of  Baron 
Munchausen,  and  their  illustrious  compeer,  Sir 
John  Temple. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Three  civil  wars.    Different  degrees  of  provoca- 
tion.   Different  results. 

"  Dat  veniam  corvis ;  vexat  censura  columbas."112 

HE  must  be  a  superficial  reader  or  observer, 
who  requires  to  be  informed  how  very  different 
the  reception  the  world  affords  to,  how  different 
the  rewards  and  punishments  it  bestows  on,  acts 
absolutely  similar.  Instances  occur  daily,  in  pub- 
lic and  private  life :  and  among  the  extraordinary 
circumstances  of  the  economy  of  human  affairs, 
this  is  the  most  difficult  to  account  for,  or  to  re- 
concile to  our  ideas  of  eternal  justice. 

The  three  kingdoms  subject  to  the  crown  of 
England,  were  the  theatres  of  civil  war,  almost 
cotemporaneously.  The  consequences'  to  the 
actors  during  their  existence,  and  to  their  fame 
with  posterity,  were  as  different  as  light  and 
darkness.  Those  who  had  every  possible  justifi- 
cation,— on  whom  had  been  perpetrated  almost 
every  species  of  outrage,  paid  the  heaviest  forfeit 
in  fortune  and  in  cotemporaneous  and  posthu- 
mous fame :  whilst  those  whose  grievances  were 
comparatively  insignificant,  attained,  living  and 
dead,  the  highest  honours,  and  many  of  them 

112  Juvenal. 


THREE    CIVIL.  WARS.  93 

aggrandized  themselves  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
utmost  wishes.  This  is  not  exactly  as  it  should 
be  :  and  though  it  is  almost  too  late  to  correct  the 
prevalent  errors  on  the  subject,  to  wash  away  the 
foul  stains  which  avarice,  religious  bigotry,  and 
national  rancour,  impressed  on  the  sufferers,  and 
though  I  may  not  therefore  fully  succeed,  yet  the 
attempt  to  effect  these  great  objects  can  hardly 
be  otherwise  than  useful. 

Charles  I.  a  bigot  and  a  despot  by  education, 
wickedly  endeavoured  to  force  a  new  religion  on 
the  Scotch.  In  this,  he  only  followed  the  exam- 
ples of  his  predecessors,  Henry,  Edward,  Mary, 
and  Elizabeth,  who  had  successively  either  forced 
or  persuaded  their  servile  parliaments  four  times, 
in  the  course  of  about  thirty  years,  to  change 
the  established  religion. 

Let  it  be  observed,  however,  that  the  new 
religion  was  not  the  antipodes  of  the  old  one,  as 
had  been  the.  case  with  the  changes  of  Edward, 
Mary,  and  Elizabeth.  The  new  religion  bore 
many  kindred  features  of  the  old :  in  points  of 
doctrine  they  were  nearly  sisters,  although  there 
was  the  most  marked  difference  in  the  church 
government.  But  I  repeat,  the  difference  be- 
tween the  religion  that  Edward,  Mary,  and  Eli- 
zabeth found  " by  law  established"  and  that  they 
"  established  by  law"  was  incalculably  greater 
than  between  the  religion  of  Scotland  at  the  ac- 
cession of  Charles  I.  and  the  religion  he  attempt- 
ed to  force  on  his  subjects. 


94  V1ND1CIJL    HJBERNICJE. 

An  important  consideration  must  not  be  passed 
over  here.  The  Scotch  laboured  under  hardly 
any  other  grievance  than  the  contemplated  inno- 
vation in  their  religion :  their  persons  and  pro- 
perty were  sacred.  • 

They  resisted  the  despotic  and  wicked  inter- 
ference between  them  and  their  God :  they 
were  in  the  right :  their  cause  was  good.  It  is 
not  given  by  the  living  God  to  any  of  the  sons  of 
men  to  force  the  religious  worship  of  his  fellow- 
men  ;  and  the  attempt  to  change  their  religious 
opinions,  is  as  transcendently  absurd  as  would  be 
the  effort  to  "  change  the  hue  of  the  dusky  Ethi- 
op."  Brutal  force,  as  has  been  long  since  ob- 
served, may  coerce  men  into  apparent  conformity ; 
but  it  never  made  a  convert  yet, — and  never  will: 
it  is  fated  to  produce  only  martyrs  or  hypocrites. 

The  evil  destiny  of  Charles  induced  him  to 
raise  forces  to  subdue  the  refractory  Scotch. 
They  obeyed  the  first  law  of  human  nature, — the 
law  of  self-preservation.  They  raised  forces  to 
defend  themselves  ;  and  finally  triumphed  over 
the  aggressor,  and  extorted  from  him  a  grant  of 
every  demand  they  chose  to  make.  He  was  to- 
tally foiled ;  and  retired  from  the  contest,  over- 
whelmed with  shame  and  disgrace. 

What  has  been  the  result,  as  respects  the 
Scotch  ?  They  were  honoured  during  their  lives ; 
were  rewarded  by  the  English  Parliament  with 
three  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and  twenty-five 
thousand  pounds  monthly,  for  "their  brotherly 


THREE    CIVIL.   WARS.  95 

assistance  ;"A  and  now  stand  in  history  as  men 
who  embarked  in  a  holy  cause,  and  were  resolved 
to  die  or  be  free. 

In  1642,  a  civil  war  took  place  in  England,  on 
various  grounds,  into  the  detail  of  which  it  is  ir- 
relevant to  my  present  purpose  to  enter.  That 
Charles  I.  was,  in  the  first  fifteen  years  of  his 
reign,  an  arbitrary  despot, — that  the  proceedings 
in  the  Star-Chamber  Court  were  equally  tyrannical 
and  cruel, — that  the  fines  in  that  court  were  op- 
pressive, the  punishments  frequently  most  barbar- 
ous, the  exactions  of  ship-money,  tonnage,  and 
poundage,  illegal  and  unjust;  and  that  they  requir- 
ed and  justified  resistance,  none  but  a  cringing 
slave,  deserving  of  the  despot's  lash,  will  deny. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  history  of -that  dark 
and  disastrous  period,  with  calmness  and  candour, 
without  being  convinced  that  all  the  substantial 
grievances  of  the  nation  were  removed,  and  am- 
ply-adequate mounds  established  to  guard  against 
a  recurrence  of  them,  before  a  single  soldier  was 
raised,  a  single  drop  of  blood  shed,  or  a  single 
step  taken  towards  civil  war  or  rebellion.  In  no 
country  whatever  was  liberty  more  adequately 
secured,  than  it  was  by  the  laws  enacted  from  the 
commencement  of  the  Long  Parliament,  in  No- 
vember, 1640,  till  February,  1642.  With  every 
demand  of  Parliament  during  that  period,  Charles 
complied ;  sometimes,  it  is  true,  very  reluctantly, 
and  with  an  ill  grace.  But,  till  then'  claim  of  the 
power  over  the  militia,  he  had  refused  them  no- 
thing. 


96  VINDICIJE 

The  English,  nevertheless,  took  up  arms.  Civil 
war  spread  its  horrors  over  the  nation,  with  its 
hideous  train  of  demoralization  and  devastation. 
Torrents  of  blood  were  shed ;  conflagration,  rape, 
rapine,  and  murder,  prowled  at  large  ;  the  foun- 
dations of  society  were  shaken  :  and  the  melan- 
choly result  was,  to  place  the  sceptre  in  the  hand, 
and  the  crown  on  the  head,  of  Cromwell,  an  un- 
principled, canting  hypocrite;  and,  after  his  death, 
to  establish  passive  obedience  and  non-resistance, 
by  an  odious  positive  law,  under  one  of  the  most 
licentious  and  profligate  monarchs  that  ever  dis- 
graced the  throne  of  England.  And  thus  the 
leaders  of  that  large,  powerful,  and  respectable 
party  that  struggled  for  the  liberties  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation,  actually  paved  the  way  for  a  far  worse 
state  of  things  than  existed  at  the  period  when 
the  contest  commenced.3  To  their  intemperate 
violence,  imprudence,  and  deficiency  of  political 
foresight,  their  country  owed  all  its  sufferings 
under  the  scandalous  reign  of  Charles  II.  the 
very  worst  of  the  despicable  race  of  the  Stuarts. 
Had  they  stopped  short,  when  they  drew  the 
teeth,  and  pared  the  nails,  of  despotism, — when 
they  traced  the  strong  line  of  demarcation  be- 
tween tyranny  on  one  side,  and  anarchy  on  the 
other,  they  would  have  deserved  eternal  re- 
membrance, and  have  conferred  lasting  and  in- 
estimable blessings  on  their  country.  And  their 
improvidence  places  at  then*  door,  all  the  havoc 
and  ruin,  the  demoralization,  and  destruction,  of 


HARD    FATE    OF    IRELAND.  97 

a  seven  years'  war, — the  failure  of  a  noble  expe- 
riment in  favour  of  the  rights  of  human  nature, 
as  well  as  the  triumph  they  afforded  to  the  friends 
of  absolute  power,  by  the  odious  abuse  of  liberty. 
These  stains  can  never  be  washed  away. 

What  has  been  the  result  as  to  the  actors  on 
this  stage  ? 

They  are  to  this  day  regarded  with  the  highest 
veneration,  by  the  most  enlightened  part  of  man- 
kind. Their  follies,  their  vices,  their  crimes,  are 
buried  in  eternal  oblivion.  Their  resistance  to 
lawless  tyranny  has  immortalized  them. 

The  Irish,  at  the  same  period,  suffered  almost 
every  species  of  the  most  grinding,  odious,  and 
revolting  despotism  that  can  be  conceived.  They 
were  subjected  to  heavy  penalties,  for  worship- 
ping God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  con- 
sciences, or  for  not  attending  #n  a  worship  which 
they  were  taught  to  execrate  ;  they  were  robbed 
of  their  estates  by  high-handed  and  flagitious 
tyranny  and  fraud ;  they  were  subject  to  martial 
law,  with  aH  its  horrors,  in  time  of  profound 
peace ;  their  juries  were  ruinously  fined,  and 
mutilated  in  their  persons,  for  not  finding  ver- 
dicts against  the  plainest  dictates  of  justice  ;  their 
churches  were  demolished,  or  rapaciously  seized 
by  their  oppressors ;  their  children  were  torn 
from  their  natural  guardians,  and  transferred  to 
the  care  of  worthless  strangers,  who  squandered 
their  estates,  and  brought  them  up  in  habits  of 
licentiousness  : — in  a  word,  it  is  difficult  to  conr 

13 


98  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

ceive  of  any  species  of  oppression  which  they 
did  not  endure. 

They  were  goaded  into  insurrection.  And  if 
ever  resistance  of  lawless  outrage  and  tyranny 
were  loudly  and  imperiously  called  for, — if  ever 
the  standard  of  freedom  claimed  the  sympathies 
of  mankind,  the  Irish  standard  had  an  indisputable 
title  to  it.  And  what  has  been  the  result  ?  Their 
most  illustrious  families  were  reduced  to  beggary; 
their  estates,  to  the  amount  of  millions  of  acres, 
were  confiscated ;  above  half  a  million  of  the  na- 
tives were  slaughtered,  banished,  or  perished  by 
famine  and  the  plague,*  the  consequence  of  the 
ruthless  and  savage  ferocity  with  which  they  were 
pursued  by  their  enemies ;  and  they  were  covered 
with  obloquy  and  abuse,  during  their  lives ;  their 
memory  has  been  detested ;  and  the  crimes  false- 
ly alleged  against  them,  have  been  visited  upon 
their  descendants  to  the  fourth  and  fifth  genera- 
tion, in  the  odious  form  of  the  vile  code  of  laws, 
"  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery." 

The  reader  is  requested  to  suspend  his  opinion 
on  the  subject  of  this  statement,  which  is  proba- 
bly diametrically  opposite  to  the  opinions  he  has 
entertained  from  his  youth.  Ample  proofs  will 
be  developed,  in  the  chapters  which  immediately 
follow  the  present  one.  The  most  rigid  scrutiny 

*  "  About  504,000  of  the  Irish  perished,  and  were  wasted 
by  the  sword,  plague,  famine,  hardship,  and  banishment,  be- 
tween the  23d  of  October,  1641,  and  the  same  day,  1652."113 

113  Petty,  18^ 


IRELAND    AND    AMERICA.  99 

is  earnestly  invited ;  and  assent  is  deprecated,  and 
will  be  rejected,  if  the  testimony  be  not  decisive 
and  overwhelming. 

On  the  subject  of  the  monstrous,  absurd,  im- 
probable, and  impossible  legends  of  the  massacre 
by  the  Irish,  I  have  already  slightly  touched,  and 
shall  reserve  for  future  chapters  a  more  full  de- 
tection of  them.  I  now  confine  myself  to  the  sim- 
ple circumstance  of  the  insurrection  itself,  strip- 
ped of  all  its  horrors,  real  or  pretended.  And  I 
dare  aver,  that  if  ever,  from  the  creation  of  the 
world,  there  was  a  holy,  sacred  insurrection, — an 
insurrection  warranted  by  every  law,  divine  or 
human,  this  was  pre-eminently  so.  Further :  if 
the  leaders  of  the  Irish  insurgents,  who  attempted 
to  shake  off  the  tyranny  of  England,  were  traitors 
and  rebels,  then  were  William  Tell,  Maurice, 
Prince  of  Orange,  Pym,  Hambden,  and  Sydney, 
traitors  and  rebels.  One  step  further :  if  these 
Irishmen  were  traitors  and  rebels,  Randolph, 
Henry,  Hancock,  Adams,  Dickinson,  Livingston, 
Lee,  Rutledge,  Clinton,  and  Washington  himself, 
were  traitors  and  rebels ;  and  not  merely  traitors 
and  rebels,  but  traitors  and  rebels  of  the  most 
atrocious  kind ;  as  the  difference  between  the 
grievances  that  Washington  and  his  illustrious 
compeers  rose  to  redress,  and  those  under  which 
Ireland  groaned,  is  very  nearly  as  great  as  that 
between  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  an  American 
citizen,  and  the  abject  state  of  the  subjects  of 
Turkish  despotism.  Indeed,  if  the  Irish  insurgents 


1  , 

100  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

were  traitors  and  rebels,  then  every  man,  in  every 
age  and  country,  who  ever  dared  to  raise  his  arm 
against  oppression,  was  a  traitor  and  a  rebel. 

This  is  strong  language,  which  will  doubtless 
be  in  direct  hostility  with  the  prejudices  of  a  large 
portion  of  my  readers.  From  then*  prejudices, 
I  appeal  to  their  reason  and  candour ;  and  if  the 
decision  be  made  by  these  respectable  arbiters,  1 
feel  no  doubt  about  the  issue.  For,  to  confine 
myself  to  the  American  revolution,  will  any  man, 
not  lost  to  decency  or  common  sense,  dare  to 
commit  himself,  by  comparing  the  grievances  of 
America  with  those  of  Ireland? — a  two-penny 
tax  on  tea,  with  the  court  of  wards,  the  Star- 
Chamber,  the  high  commission  court,  the  flagiti- 
ous plunder  of  the  whole  province  of  Ulster,  the 
attempt  to  confiscate  the  whole  province  of  Con- 
naught,  the  seizure  of  their  churches,  the  banish- 
ment of  their  priests,  the  persecution  of  their  re- 
ligion, the  restriction  of  their  trade,  the  execution 
of  martial  law, — in  a  word,  the  endless  detail  of 
the  most  grievous  oppression  on  record  ?  If  then 
the  despotic  and  lawless  imposition  of  a  paltry  tax 
on  tea,  warranted  the  subject  in  drawing  the  sword, 
and  commencing  a  civil  war,  surely  it  is  not  as- 
suming much,  to  say  that  the  oppressions  of 
Ireland  warranted  it  far  more.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
averred,  and  the  decision  submitted  to  any  bar 
of  enlightened  men  in  Christendom,  that  were  all 
the  oppressions  suffered  by  the  American  pro- 
vinces, from  the  first  landing  of  the  pilgrims  to 


BROTHERLY    ASSISTANCE.  101 

the  declaration  of  independence,  aggregated  into 
one  solid  mass,  and  all  the  oppressions  of  Eng- 
land, under  the  Stuarts,  thrown  in  to  swell  the 
amount,  they  would  not  equal. the  grievances 
suffered  by  the  Irish,  during  the  reigns  of  James  I. 
and  Charles  I.  And  it  is,  moreover,  hardly  pos- 
sible to  find,  in  the  history  of  Ireland,  from  the 
invasion  of  Henry  II.  till  the  Union,  any  five 
consecutive  years,  in  which  the  Irish  had  not 
greater  ground  for  insurrection  and  resistance  to 
the  English  government,  than  England  could 
plead  in  1688,  or  America  in  1775  or  1776.  H 


NOTE  I.  ON  CHAPTER  IV. 

A  P.  95.  Brotherly  assistance.]  This  very 
extraordinary  fact  has  attracted  the  attention  of 
few  readers  of  English  history.  The  money  paid 
to  the  Scotch  on  this  occasion,  is  generally  con- 
founded with  the  arrears  paid  them  about  five 
years  afterwards,  when  they  delivered  Charles  I. 
into  the  hands  of  the  Parliament,  after  he  had 
fled  to  then1  camp  before  Newark,  on  the  final 
downfal  of  his  affairs.  This  is  a  very  great  error : 
for,  on  the  2 1st  of  May,  1641,  a  resolution  was 
passed  in  the  English  House  of  Commons,  which 
explicitly  voted  this  sum  to  the  Scotch,  under 


102  VINDICUE    HIBERNICJE. 

the  very  remarkable  title  of  "  brotherly  assis- 
tance-"* ..oi^CjU^ 

Thus  that  very  Parliament  which  so  rancorous- 
ly  pursued  the.Irislvto  their  utter  ruin,  and  to  the 
scaffold,  for  resistance  to  tyranny,  lavished  the 
wealth  of  their  constituents  on  the  Scotch,  for 
similar  resistance,  without  a  tenth  part  of  the 
provocation.  If  this  do  not  warrant  the  motto 
of  the  crows  and  the  pigeons,  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter,  it  is  truly  wonderful. 

A  singular  circumstance  occurred,  on  taking 
the  vote  for  the  "  brotherly  assistance."  Mr.  Jer- 
vase  Hollis,  in  a  debate  on  the  best  and  speediest 
means  of  their  payment,  having  said,  "  that  he 
knew  no  better  or  fitter  than  by  English  arms  to 
expel  them  the  kingdom,"  was  called  to  the  bar, 
and  expelled  the  house.114 

Times  soon  changed.  The  Scotch,  then  such 
favourites,  fell  into  disgrace  in  a  few  years.  By 

*May  21,  1641. 

"  Resolved,  &c.  That  the  whole  arrear  of  120,0007.  be  pre- 
sently paid  to  the  Scots,  out  of  which  the  due  debts  of  the 
counties  are  to  be  deducted;  and  for  the  brotherly  assistance 
o/300,000/.  it  shall  be  settled  and  secured  by  the  kingdom  to 
them."115 

"  As  a  testimony  of  their  brotherly  affections,  the  two 
Houses  had  frankly  undertaken  to  give  them  a  gratuity  of 
three  hundred  thousand  pounds,  over  and  above  the  twenty- 
five  thousand  pounds  the  month,  during  the  time  their  stay 
should  be  necessary."116 

114  Frankland,  900.  115  Nalson,  II.  255. 

116  Clarendon's  E.  I.  266. 


ENGLAND  AND  FRANCE.         103 

a  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons,  ten  years  after- 
wards, fifteen  hundred  of  the  prisoners  of  that 
nation  were  sold  or  given  away  to  the  Guinea 
merchants,  to  work  in  the  mines.* 

NOTE  II.  ON  CHAPTER  IV. 

B  P.  96.  Ji  far  worse  slate  of  things  than  ex- 
isted at  the  period  when  the  contest  commenced.'] 
It  requires  but  little  reflection  or  observation, 
to  discover  a  considerable  resemblance  between 
the  issue  of  this  contest,  and  that  of  the  late  re- 
volution in  France  ;  and  that  the  leaders  in  both 
countries  fell  into  exactly  the  same  species  of 
error,  with  results  not  very  dissimilar.  Had 
the  Parliament  of  England  stopped  short  at  the 
point  stated  in  the  text,  the  liberties  of  that 
nation  would  have  been  placed,  in  1642,  on  a 
far  better  and  more  secure  foundation,  than 
they  acquired  at  the  so-much-extolled  revolu- 
tion in  1688,  when,  on  the  abdication  of  the 
bigot  James,  they  called  in  a  foreign  prince 
to  rule  them,  with  hardly  any  stipulation  what- 
ever in  favour  of  liberty.  And  it  is  equally  ob- 
vious, that  had  the  French  leaders  rested  content, 
when  they  gave  the  king  a  veto  on  the  acts  of 

*  September  20,  1651. 

"  Upon  the  desire  of  the  Guinea  merchants,  fifteen  hundred 
of  the  Scots  prisoners  were  granted  to  them,  and  sent  on  ship- 
hoard,  to  be  sent  to  Guinea,  to  work  in  the  mines  there."117 

117  Whitelock,  485. 


104  VINDTCLK    HIBERNICJE. 

the  legislature,  similar  to  what  exists  in  England 
or  the  United  States,  the  nation  and  the  world 
at  large  would  have  been  prodigiously  benefited : 
and  an  incalculable  waste  of  human  happiness 
and  wealth,  rivers  of  blood,  and  millions  of 
lives,  would  have  been  spared.  But,  according 
to  the  wise  aphorism  of  the  ex-president  Adams, 
"  Every  age  will  make  'experience  for  itself." 


(      105      ) 


CHAPTER  V. 

State  of  Ireland,  under  James,  I.  and  Charles  I. 
previous  to  1641.  Awful  credulity  or  impos- 
ture. Rancorous  spirit  of  persecution.  Sacri- 
legious burglary  and  robbery,  by  the  archbishop, 
mayor,  and  recorder  of  Dublin. 

"  Quis  custodiet  ipsos  custodes  ?" 

PREVIOUS  to  entering  on  the  discussion  of 
the  insurrection  of  l$4l,  it  is  highly  proper  to 
cast  a  glance  on  the  state  of  the  nation  previous 
to  that  event. 

In  order  to  aggravate  as  much  as  possible  the 
guilt  of  the  Irish,  in  what  is  styled  "  the  execrable 
rebellion  of  1641,"  and  more  completely  to  ex- 
pose them  to  detestation,  almost  every  writer, 
who  has  either  professedly  treated  this  subject, 
or  touched  it  incidentally,  has  drawn  a  most  flat- 
tering picture  of  the  peace,  prosperity,  and  hap- 
piness of  Ireland,  for  forty  previous  years.  It 
requires  no  deep  research  to  discover,  that  the 
motive  is  to  inspire  a  belief,  that  the  insurrection 
was  as  wanton  and  unprovoked  in  its  origin,  as 
they  have  endeavoured  to  make  it  appear  bar- 
barous and  sanguinary  in  its  progress. 

14 


106  VINDIGLE    HIBERNICJE. 

In  this  object  they  have  been  crowned  with 
success :  for  the  general  impression  is,  that  Ire- 
land, during  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and  his  son 
Charles  I.  enjoyed  a  high  degree  of  prosperity, 
to  which  she  has  been  an  utter  stranger,  from  the 
day  of  the  invasion  by  Henry  II.  when  lust  and 
faction  laid  the  island  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  a 
foreign  foe,  to  the  present  hour. 

Sir  John  Temple  first  broached  this  deceptious 
tale.  He  states,  that  for  forty  years  the  two  na- 
tions had  lived  together  in  peace,  and  been  con- 
solidated into  one  body,  as  one  nation  ;  that  the 
Roman  Catholics  enjoyed  the  private  exercise  of 
their  religious  rites  without  molestation ;  and  that 
none  of  the  penalties  of  the  laws  against  their  re- 
ligion were  inflicted.* 

*  "  The  two  nations  had  now  lived  together  forty  years  ii\ 
peace,  with  great  security  and  comfort,  which  had  in  a  manner 
consolidated  them  into  one  body,  knit  and  compacted  together 
with  all  those  bonds  and  ligatures  of  friendship,  alliance,  and 
consanguinity,  as  might  make  up  a  constant  and  perpetual 
union  between  them. 

"  Their  priests,  Jesuits,  and  friars,  without  any  manner  of 
restraint^  had  quietly  settled  themselves  in  all  the  chief  towns, 
villages,  noblemen's  and  private  gentlemen's  houses,  through- 
out the  kingdom:  so  as  the  private  exercise  of  ALL. THEIR 
RELIGIOUS  RITES  AND  CEREMONIES  was  freely  enjoyed  by 
them,  without  any  manner  of  disturbance,  and  not  any  of  the 
laws  put  in  execution,  whereby  heavy  penalties  were  to  be 
inflicted  upon  transgressors  in  that  kind."118 

118  Temple,  15. 


DECEPTIOUS  PORTRAIT.          107 

This  statement  is  copied  and  enlarged,   by 
Clarendon,*  Carte,f  Warner,  and  Leland.     They 

*  "  Taxes,  tallages,  and  contributions  were  things  hardly 
known  to  them  by  their  names.  Whatsoever  their  land,  labour, 
or  industry  produced  was  their  own,  being  not  only  free  from 
fear  of  having  it  taken  from  them  by  the  king,  upon  any  pre- 
tence whatsoever,  without  their  own  consent ;  but  also  secured 
against  thieves  and  robbers,  by  due  execution  of  good  laws, 
that  men  might  and  did  travel  over  all  the  parts  of  the  king- 
dom, with  great  sums  of  money,  unguarded  and  unconcealed. 

"  The  whole  nation  enjoyed  an  undisturbed  exercise  of  their 
religion :  and  even  in  Dublin,  where  the  seat  of  the  king's  chief 
governor  was,  they  went  as  publicly  and  uninterruptedly  to 
their  devotions,  as  he  went  to  his.  The  bishops,  priests,  and 
all  degrees  and  orders  of  secular  and  regular  clergy,  were 
known  to  be,  and  exercise  their  functions  amongst  them  :  and 
though  there  were  some  laws  against  them  still  in  force,  which 
necessity  and  the  wisdom  of  former  ages  had  caused  to  be 
enacted,  to  suppress  those  acts  of  treason  and  rebellion  which 
the  people  frequently  fell  into,  and  the  policy  of  present  times 
kept  unrepealed,  to  prevent  the  like  distempers  and  designs, 
yet  the  edge  of  those  laws  was  so  totally  rebated  by  the  cle- 
mency and  compassion  of  the  king,  that  NO  MAN  COULD  SAY 

HE  HAD  SUFFERED  PREJUDICE  OR  DISTURBANCE  ON  AC- 
COUNT OF  HIS  RELIGION,  which  is  another  kind  of  indulgence 
than  subjects  professing  a  faith  contrary  to  what  is  established 
by  the  law  of  the  land,  can  boast  of  in  any  other  kingdom  of 
the  world.  In  this  blessed  condition  of  peace  and  security,  the 
English  and  Irish,  the  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics,  lived 
mingled  together  in  all  the  provinces  of  the  kingdom,  quietly 
trafficking  with  one  another,  during  the  whole  happy  reign  of 
James :  and  from  his  death,  every  degree  of  their  happiness 
was  increased  and  improved  under  the  government  of  his  late 
majesty."119 

f  "  The  kingdom  had  enjoyed  a  continued  peace  of  near  forty 
years,  during  which  the  ancient  animosities  between  the  Irish 

119  Clarendon's  I.  7,  8. 


108  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

freely  borrow  not  merely  each  other's  sentiments, 
but  their  very  phraseology.  Lord  Clarendon  and 
Warner  go  much  farther  than  the  others ;  who, 
so  far  as  religion  is  concerned  in  the  question, 
only  assert  that  the  private  exercise  of  it  was 
permitted;  whereas,  lord  Clarendon  asserts,  in 
the  most  unqualified  manner,  that  the  whole  na- 
tion enjoyed  an  undisturbed  exercise  of  their  reli- 
gion :  and  even  in  Dublin,  they  went  as  publicly 
and  as  uninterruptedly  to  their  devotions,  as  the 
king's  chief  governor  himself  to  his.  Warner  bor- 
rows this  sentiment  from  lord  Clarendon,  but 
qualifies  it  in  a  small  degree.  He  says  "  they 
went,  though  not  as  publicly,  yet  as  uninterrupt- 
edly, as  the  governor  to  their  devotions"™ 

To  this  statement,  the  doctor  makes,  with 
Clarendon,  this  extraordinary  addition ;  that  "  the 
edge  of  the  laws  against  the  Roman  Catholics 
was  so  totally  rebated  by  the  lenity  of  the  go- 
vernment, that  not  a  single  man  could  say  that 
he  had  suffered  any  prejudice  or  disturbance  for 

and  the  English  seemed  to  have  been  buried,  and  both  nations 
cemented,  and  as  it  were  consolidated  together,  by  intermar- 
riages, alliances,  consanguinity,  gossippings,  and  festerings, 
(the  two  last  being  relations  of  great  force  and  dearness  among 
the  Irish)  and  by  a  continued  intercourse  of  acts  of  hospitality, 
service,  and  friendship  :  lands  had  been  improved,  traffic  in- 
creased, and  the  kingdom  in  general  raised  to  a  more  flourish- 
ing condition  than  it  had  ever  known.  THE  ROMAN  CATHO- 
LICS ENJOYED  THE  QJJIET  EXERCISE  OF  THEIR  RELIGION,  IN 
A  PRIVATE  WAY."121 

120  Warner,  2.  ul  Carte,  I.  153. 


MANIFEST    INCONSISTENCY.  109 

his  religion."122  It  is  hoped  that  the  reader  will 
bear  this  averment  strongly  in  memory,  through- 
out the  succeeding  pages,  as  well  as  lord  Claren- 
don's "undisturbed  exercise :"  and  I  shall  be  most 
miserably  disappointed,  if  the  facts  to  be  laid  be- 
fore him  do  not  impair,  if  not  wholly  destroy,  his 
confidence  in  the  noble  as  well  as  the  reverend 
writer. 

Neither  Temple's  nor  Clarendon's  histories 
furnish  any  contradiction  of  these  sweeping 
statements ;  so  that,  though  erroneous,  they 
are  not  inconsistent  with  themselves.  But  the 
declarations  of  Carte,  Warner,  and  Leland,  are 
in  the  most  direct  hostility  with  facts  adduced 
throughout  their  own  works  :  and,  however  ex- 
traordinary it  may  appear,  my  principal,  if  not 
my  sole  reliance  for  then*  overwhelming  refuta- 
tion, shall  be  on  these  three  writers  themselves. 
This  is  another  instance  of  a  peculiar  feature  in 
Irish  history,  which  I  have  already  noticed,  that 
the  facts  and  inductions  of  the  writers,  even  of 
those,  i  most  celebrated,  frequently  destroy  each 
other.  Either  the  facts  must  be  wholly  unfounded, 
or  the  inductions  unwarranted. 

The  happiness,  of  which  we  have  read  such 
glowing  descriptions,  may  be  regarded  under  va- 
rious points  of  view.  Passing  over  those  of 
minor  importance,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  the 
four  principal, — 

122  Warner,  2. 


I  10  V1NDICL*:    H1BERNIC£. 

1 .  Freedom  in  the  exercise  of  their  religion. 

2.  Security  of  person. 

3.  Security  of  property.     And 

4.  A  fair  representation  in  Parliament. 

If  the  Irish  enjoyed  these  solid  advantages, 
when  the  insurrection  commenced,  then  they 
deserved  all  the  horrors  inflicted  on  them,  in  the 
varied  shapes  of  confiscation,  proscription,  pesti- 
lence, famine,  and  indiscriminate  slaughter  :  and 
the  writers  whom  I  have  quoted  are  justified 
completely  in  their  assertions.  But  if  they  were, 
as  I  hope  to  prove,  persecuted  for  the  exercise 
of  their  religion,  insecure  in  their  persons, 
despoiled  of  their  property,  and  mocked  with  a 
corrupt,  packed,  prostitute  parliament ;  then  are 
the  statements  of  this  host  of  authorities  destitute 
of  credibility  :  and  they  will  in  this  instance,  as  in 
so  many  others,  stand  convicted  of  carelessness, 
credulity,  or  imposture.  Their  assertions,  though 
propped  up  by  the  imposing  titles  of  their  noble 
and  reverend  authors,  will,  or,  were  they  sup- 
ported by  the  whole  house  of  peers,  including  the 
bench  of  bishops,  would,  have  no  weight  with 
men  of  independent  minds,  among  whom,  it  is 
hoped,  this  work  will  find  many  readers. 

I  shall  examine  these  items  separately ;  and 
commence  with  a  view  of  the  state  of  religious 
freedom  in  Ireland. 

I  undertake  to  prove, — 

I.  That  the  law  imposing  penalties  on  persons 
refusing  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  or  not 


GRIEVANCES  DETAILED.         Ill 

attending  service  in  a  Protestant  church  on  Sun- 
days, was  rigorously  enforced. 

II.  That  juries,  who  would  not  find  hills  of  in- 
dictment against  Roman  Catholics  for  this  non- 
attendance,  were  brought  before  the  Star-Chamber 
for  the  offence,  as  it  was  termed,  and  subjected 
to  the  injustice  and  severity  of  that  odious  tri- 
bunal. 

III.  That  the  heirs  of  Roman  Catholics  were 
torn  from  the  protection  of  their  natural  guar- 
dians,   and   delivered  to   strangers,    frequently 
worthless  and  profligate,   who   neglected  their 
education,  suffered  them  to  grow  up  in  abandon- 
ed and  dissolute  habits,  and  depredated  on  their 
property. 

IV.  That  the  Roman  Catholics  suffered  a  num- 
ber of  most  grievous  and  oppressive  disqualifica- 
tions, in  consequence  of  their  adherence  to  their 
religion. 

V.  That   the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  were 
banished  the  kingdom  by  proclamation. 

VI.  That,  in  the  exercise  of  their  religious 
worship,  they  were  assailed  by  a  band  of  soldiers, 
by  order  of  the  lord  deputy,  their  altars  sacri- 
legiously destroyed,  and  their  church  property 
feloniously  purloined. 

VII.  That  their  chapels  were  rapaciously  seized 
by  the  government,  and  one  of  them  razed  to  the 
ground,  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  as  a  punishment  for 
their  attendance  on  public  worship. 


112  YINDICLE    IIIBERNICJE. 

POINTS    I.  $  II. 

To  prove  these  points,  1  refer  first  to  Leland. 
who  states,  that  "  when  bills  of  indictment  were 
presented  against  recusants,  and  were  not  found 
by  the  grand  juries,  those  grand  juries  were  cited 
to  appear  in  the  Star-Chamber,  and  punished."* 

The  good  doctor  informs  us,  with  great  gra- 
vity, and  an  appearance  of  astonishment,  that 
this  severity  "  only  increased  the  clamour."  It  is 
truly  wonderful,  and  displays,  beyond  ah1  ques- 
tion, the  very  refractory  temper  of  the  Irish,  that 
they  should  have  c;  clamoured"  against  such  a  mild 
exercise  of  the  prerogative,  as  punishing  grand 
juries,  with  the  ordinary  clemency  of  the  Star- 
Chamber  CourtTA  for  the  heinous  offence  of  not 
finding  bills  of  indictment  against  persons  refus- 
ing to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  or  attending 
on  a  species  of  worship  contrary  to  their  con- 
sciences ! 

The  doctor  further  informs  us,  that  the  deputy, 
Oliver  St.  John,  being  actuated  by  peculiar  zeal 
against  Popery,  or  perhaps  provoked  by  the  in- 
solence of  the  recusant  party,  "proceeded  to  a 

*  "  The  rich,  when  PRESENTED  AS  RECUSANTS,  enjoyed  too 
much  of  favour  from  their  countrymen,  for  any  jury  to  find 
a  verdict  against  them  ;  and  when  jurors  who  found  verdicts, 
in  direct  opposition  to  the  clearest  evidence,  were  called  to  the 
star-chamber^  (or  castle-chamber,  as  it  is  sometimes  called)  the 
severity  only  served  to  increase  the  clamour  "u3 

123  Leland,  II.  516. 


PERSECUTION.  113 

vigorous  execution  of  the  penal  statutes  against 
them."* 

We  are  left  to  conjecture  what  was  the  species 
of  insolence  that  thus  led  this  amiable  first  ma- 
gistrate to  the  "  vigorous  execution"  of  these  mild 
statutes.  It  was,  perhaps,  that  they  had  the  au- 
dacity to  celebrate  divine  worship  openly,  or  were 
guilty  of  some  other  crime,  equally  atrocious. 
But  it  is  unimportant  to  our  present  purpose  to 
inquire  into  the  cause.  All  I  desire  to  establish, 
is,  that  these  penal  statutes  were  "  vigorously  exe- 
cuted," in  order  to  disprove  the  allegation  that 
the  Roman  Catholics  had  for  forty  years  "  the 
undisturbed  exercise  of  their  religion"  or  even 
"fully  enjoyed  the  private  exercise  of  it"  But  I 
do  not,  although  I  might,  rely  wholly  on  Leland. 
To  support  the  reverend  divine,  I  appeal  to  Carte, 
who  informs  us  that  Oliver  St.  John  "  caused  pre- 
sentments to  be  made,  in  different  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  of  such  as  neglected  coming  to  church 
on  Sundays"12*  It  is  not  difficult  to  calculate 
what  a  harvest  of  penalties  was  reaped  by  petti- 
fogging magistrates,  and  by  the  pimps,  spies,  and 
detestable  race  of  informers,  from  these  "present- 

*  "  Whether  provoked  by  the  insolence  of  the  recusant  party, 
or  that  his  nature  and  principles  disposed  him  to  treat  them 
with  less  lenity  than  they  had  for  some  time  experienced,  HE 

SOON  PROCEEDED  TO  A  VIGOROUS  EXECUTION  OF  THE  PENAL 
STATUTES."125 

334  Carte,  I.  34.  »5  Leland,  II.  540. 

15 


114  V1NDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

merits  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom,"  or  what 
scenes  of  depredation  were  perpetrated  on  those 
Catholics,  of  whom  Clarendon  and  Warner  have 
been  misguided  enough  to  state,  that  "  no  man 
could  say  he  had  suffered  prejudice  or  disturbance 
on  account  of  his  religion  ///" 

Chichester's  administration  commenced  with 
an  extreme  degree  of  severity.  He  ha<J  received 
orders  from  James  I.  to  put  the  laws  in  force 
against  recusants,  with  which  he  cheerfully  com- 
plied.* "  Gentle  means  failing  to  have  any 
effect,  sixteen  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  city 

*  "  In  the  beginning  of  king  James's  reign,  the  penal  laws 
were  put  in  execution  against  recusants,  and  indictments  ex- 
hibited AGAINST  THEM  FOR  NOT  COMING  TO  CHURCH/'1*6 

"  The  chief  governor  and  council  were  determined  to  re- 
vive those  statutes  which  were  insulted  -with  such  confidence" 
[That  is,  in  plain  English,  the  miserable  worm,  man,  was  in- 
sulted by  his  fellow-worm  worshipping  the  living  God  differ- 
ently from  the  mode  prescribed  by  law  !]  "  They  began  by 
enjoining  the  magistrates  and  chief  citizens  to  repair  to  the 
established  churches.  Repeated  admonitions  and  conferences 
served  but  to  render  them  more  obstinate;  THEY  WERE  FINED, 

AND    COMMITTED    TO   PRISON."127 

"  Magistrates  and  officers  of  justice  -were  strictly  required 
to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy :  and  as  the  city  of  Waterford 
had  obstinately  chosen  a  succession  of  recusants  for  their  chief 
magistrates,  who  all  in  turn  refused  to  take  this  oath,  and  in 
other  particulars  discovered  an  aversion  to  conformity ;  a 
commission  issued,  TO  SEIZE  THE  LIBERTIES  AND  REVENUES 
of  a  city  which  had  formerly  and  frequently  been  obnoxious 
to  the  state."188 

116  Carte,  I.  140.       m  Leland,  II.  495.       m  Idem,  54O. 


PERSECUTION.  115 

were  convened  into  the  Castle-Chamber,  of 
whom  nine  of  the  chief  were  censured ;  six  of  the 
aldermen  were  fined  each  one  hundred  pounds  ; 
the  other  three,  fifty  pounds  each  :  and  were  all 
committed  prisoners  to  the  castle,  during  the 
pleasure  of  the  court.  It  was  at  the  same  time 
ordered,  that  none  of  the  citizens  should  bear 
offices  till  they  had  conformed."129  With  this 
fact  before  his  eyes,  derived  from  the  best  autho- 
rity, Leland  affords  an  example  of  the  most  un- 
accountable inaccuracy,  to  use  no  stronger  lan- 
guage. He  informs  us,  that  the  annual  amount 
of  fines  imposed  on  recusants  in  the  county  of 
Dublin,  during  the  administration  of  lord  Chiches- 
ter,  did  not  exceed  the  sum  of  fourteen  or  fifteen 
pounds  ;130  whereas  it  appears  that  at  one  time 
nine  persons  paid  seven  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
sterling,  in  the  city  of  Dublin  alone :  and  we  have 
every  reason  to  presume,  notwithstanding  the  si- 
lence of  certain  historians  on  the  subject,  that  the 
law  was  enforced  with  equal  rigour  every  where 
else.  No  reason  can  be  assigned  why,  when  the 
whole  nation  lay  at  the  feet  of  those  merciless 
oppressors,  they  would  confine  their  rapacity  to 
the  precincts  of  Dublin.  It  is  a  well-known 
property  of  despotism,  that  its  subordinate  agents 
are  always  more  arbitrary  and  oppressive  than 
their  principals ;  and  it  is  therefore  highly  proba- 
ble, as  indeed  is  established  by  the  testimony  of 

129  Harris,  32?.  13°  Leland,  II.  515. 


116  V1NDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

cotemporary  Roman  Catholic  writers,  that  the 
rapacity  of  the  administration  was  at  least  equal- 
led in  every  other  quarter  of  the  island.* 

*  "  The  Catholics  of  Ireland,  on  account  of  their  greater 
number  and  opulence,  had  contributed  more  liberally  to  the 
above-mentioned,  and  all  other  supplies,  than  all  the  rest  of 
his  majesty's  subjects  of  that  kingdom;  and  the  king,  instead 
of  redressing'  their  present  grievances,  did,  in  a  few  months 
after  the  date  of  his  letter  of  thanks  above-mentioned,  not  only 
continue,  but  increase  them,  by  giving  particular  instructions 
to  Oliver  St.  John,  then  going  over  deputy,  to  put  the  statute 
of  the  2d  of  Elizabeth,  and  all  other  penal  statutes,  in  strict 
execution ;  instructions  which  Sir  Oliver  seemed  very  well 
inclined  to  pursue  ;  for,  at  his  entering  on  the  government,  he 
did  indeed  proceed  with  vigour  in  the  execution  of  that  statute, 
and  caused  presentments  to  be  made  of  such  as  neglected  coming 
to  church  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The  effects  of  this 
rigour  were  dismal  and  extensive ;  the  treasures  of  the  rich 
were  thereby  soon  exhausted ;  and  the  poor  every  where,  not 
being  able  to  pay  this  tax  on  their  consciences,  fled  into  dens, 
and  caverns  from  the  cruel  collectors  of  it,  whither  they  were 
sometimes  pursued  by  the  furious  blood-hounds,  set  on  and 
followed  by  a  sheriff  and  his  posse  of  disbanded  soldiers, 
equally  furious  and  unrelenting.  Mr.  Rooth,  a  cotemporary 
writer,  informs  us,  that  in  the  poor  county  of  Cavan  alone,  not 
less  than  eight  thousand  pounds  were  levied  in  one  year,  by 
means  of  this  tax.  Ecclesiastical  censures,  on  the  same  ac- 
count, were  severely  executed  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom. 
Those  who  lay  under  them,  when  found  abroad,  were  con- 
stantly thrown  into  jails  ;  and  great  numbers  of  merchants  and 
artificers,  being  thus  confined  at  home,  and  hindered  to  transact 
business  publicly,  and  in  the  way  of  open  commerce,  were 
suddenly  reduced  to  poverty  and  distress.  Even  their  dead 
bodies  did  not  escape  the  cruelty  of  these  censurers ;  for  if 
they  happened  to  die,  while  yet  they  lay  under  them,  they 
were  denied  Christian  burial,  and  their  corpses  thrown  into 


INGRATITUDE.  117 

In  these  proceedings  of  the  deputies,  under 
the  express  direction  of  James  I.  there  was  a 
signal  display  of  the  base  ingratitude  that  pecu- 
liarly characterized  the  wretched  Stuart  race, 
who,  during  the  whole  of  their  sway,  were  a 
curse  and  a  scourge  to  Ireland.  A  short  time 
previously,  the  Irish  Parliament  had  unanimously 
voted  that  monarch  uncommonly  liberal  supplies, 
for  which  he  had,  in  his  usual  verbose  style,  or- 
dered the  deputy  to  return  them  his  thanks.  The 
Catholics  were,  as  justly  stated  by  Curry  in  the 
preceding  note,  as  much  more  wealthy  as  they 
were  more  numerous  than  the  Protestants ;  and 
of  course  were  entitled,  for  their  liberality,  to 
some  display  of  gratitude  and  lenity.  But  the 
only  return  made  by  the  miserable  king,  was  to 
issue  orders,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  deputy,  to 
enforce  the  execution  of  the  unjust  and  wicked 
statutes  against  them. 

Dr.  Leland,  discussing  the  oppressions  and 
penalties  which  the  Roman  Catholics  suffered, 
reasons  with  great  sang  froid  on  the  folly  of  their 
subjecting  themselves  to  such  disadvantages,  and 
appears  to  believe  that  there  is  no  more  difficulty 
in  a  change  of  religion,  than  in  a  change  of  the 
fashion  of  dress.  He  very  philosophically  states. 

holes,  dug  in  the  highways,  with  every  mark  of  ignominy  that 
could  be  devised  and  inflicted  by  their  bigoted  judges."131 

131  Curry,  I.  101. 


118  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

that  "men  whose  religious  principles  expose 
them  to  grievous  disadvantages  in  society,  are 
particularly  bound  to  examine  those  principles 
with  care  and  accuracy,  lest  they  sacrifice  the 
interests  of  themselves  and  their  posterity  to  an 
illusion."132 

This  is  a  miserable  cant,  which  applies  with 
equal  force  and  propriety  to  the  case  of  all  per- 
secutors, of  all  ages  and  every  country.  Diocle- 
sian,  Nero,  or  Mahomet,  might  with  equal  pro- 
priety have  held  the  same  language  to  the  un- 
happy objects  on  whom  they  wreaked  their  ven- 
geance, as  the  Irish  government.  They  might 
have  said,  while  they  were  preparing  their  stakes 
and  their  flames,  "  You  ought  to  examine  with 
care  and  accuracy  those  principles  which  expose 
you  to  grievous  disadvantages,  and  not  to  sacri- 
fice your  own  interests,  and  those  of  your  pos- 
terity, to  an  illusion."  The  idea  of  a  nation  laying 
aside,  as  illusions,  those  religious  opinions  which 
they  had  imbibed  in  infancy,  and  those  practices 
to  which  they  were  habituated  through  life,  and 
which  "grew  with  their  growth,"  would  never 
have  entered  into  the  mind  of  any  man  who  was 
not  temporarily  a  dotard ;  arrd  whatever  might 
have  been  the  ordinary  range  of  Dr.  Leland's 
mind,  he  must,  at  that  moment  have  been  in 
a  state  of  dotage. 

132Lcland,  II.  517. 


COURT    OF    WARDS.  119 

POINT  III. 

The  Court  of  Wards. 

A  very  large  portion  of  the  exercise  of  the 
energies,  the  talents,  and  the  industry  of  man- 
kind, results  from  that  holy  regard  to  offspring, 
which  pervades  all  animated  nature,  not  except- 
ing the  most  ferocious  tenants  of  the  woods ; 
which  is  among  the  most  powerful  of  the  impel- 
ling motives  of  man  and  beast ;  and  is  wisely 
implanted  by  ( our  Creator  for  the  best  purposes. 
Men  of  genuine  parental  feelings  labour,  with  at 
least  as  much  zeal,  to  secure  independence  and 
happiness  for  their  offspring,  as  for  their  own 
proper  advantage.  But  as  if  nothing  holy  or 
sacred  could  escape  the  violence  and  virulence 
of  the  Irish  administration,  in  its  dire  hostility  to 
the  Roman  Catholics,  an  attempt  was  made  to 
cut  up  by  the  roots  this  inherent  and  instinctive 
principle,  by  the  establishment  of  the  court  of 
wards,  whereby  the  heirs  of  the  Irish  nobility  and 
gentry  were,  on  the  decease  of  their  parents, 
placed  under  the  care  of  some  court  parasite,  or 
person  who  bribed  the  court,  and  thus  purchas- 
ed the  guardianship.  Lord  Orrery  remarks, 
that  the  objections  to  the  court  of  wards  were, 
that  "  no  man  would  labour  for  a  child,  who,  ./or 
aught  he  knows,  may  be  sold  like  cattle  in  the 
market,  eren  to  those  who  will  give  most :  for," 
adds  he,  "  SUCH  ABUSES  HAVE  BEEN  TOO  OFTEN 
COMMITTED  by  those  who  have  enjoyed  the 


120  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC£. 

bounties  of  their  king."133  This  statement  from 
lord  Orrery,  of  the  situation  of  the  children  of 
the  Roman  Catholics,  who  were  "  sold  in  the  mar- 
ket" to  the  highest  bidder,  deserves  the  most 
marked  attention ;  and,  coming  from  the  pen  of 
a  most  rancorous  enemy,  establishes  this  point 
beyond  controversy,  and  exhibits  a  species  of 
oppression  of  which  probably  the  world  has  be- 
held few  examples. 

Independent  of  the  education  of  the  heirs,  the 
court  of  wards  had  a  control  over  their  marriage, 
of  which  they  made  a  most  iniquitous  use  ;  and 
frequently  degraded  and  dishonoured  them,  by 
marriage  with  persons  wholly  unsuitable  in  point 
of  character  and  family.* 

In  the  Trim  Remonstrance,  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics make  the  most  severe  complaints  against  the 
exactions,  injustice,  and  oppression  of  this  court, 

*  "  The  wardship  and  marriage  of  the  heir  were  likewise 
reserved  to  the  crown.  These  lands  and  wardships  were 
usually  granted  to  favourites,  and  men  of  power  and  interest, 
who,  though  they  gave  security  to  the  court  of  wards  to  take 
care,  as  well  of  the  education  and  maintenance  of  the  heir,  as 
of  the  good  condition  of  the  estate,  too  often  neglected  both  ; 
destroyed  the  woods,  and  committed  horrible  waste  upon  the 
lands  ;  brought  up  the  heir  in  ignorance,  and  in  a  mean  manner 
unworthy  of  his  quality;  and,  SELLING  HIS  PERSON 
TO  THE  BEST  BIDDER,  matched  him  unequally  in  point 
of  birth  and  fortune,  as  well  as  disagreeably  with  regard  to  the 
character,  qualities,  and  figure  of  the  person  that  was  picked 
out  to  be  the  companion  of  his  life."13* 

133  Orrery,  I.  59.  134  Carte,  II.  248. 


COURT    OF    WARDS.  121 

whereby  "  the  heirs  of  Catholic  noblemen  and 
other  Catholics  were  most  cruelly  and  tyranni- 
cally dealt  withal,  destroyed  in  their  estates,  and 
bred  in  dissoluteness  and  ignorance."* 

To  the  same  effect  bishop  Burnet  writes  of  this 
court,  that  "  families  were  often  at  mercy,  and 
were  used  according  to  their  behaviour.  King 
James  granted  these  guardianships  generally  to 
his  servants  and  favourites ;  and  THEY  MADE  THE 
MOST  OF  THEM  ;  so  that  what  was  before  a  de- 
pendence on  the  crown,  and  was  moderately 
compounded,  became  a  most  exacting  oppression, 
by  which  several  families  were  ruined."131 

*  Extract  from  the  Remonstrance  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland, 
presented  to  his  majesty's  commissioners  at  Trim,  March 
17,  1642. 

The  fourth  item  of  their  grievances,  was 
"  The  illegal,  arbitrary,  and  unlawful  proceedings  of  the 
said  Sir  William  Parsons,  and  one  of  the  said  impeached 
judges,  and  their  adherents  and  instruments  in  the  court  of 
wards,  and  the  many  wilfully  erroneous  decrees  and  judgments 
of  that  court,  by  which  the  heirs  of  Catholic  noblemen  and 
other  Catholics  were  most  cruelly  and  tyrannically  dealt  with- 
al ;  destroyed  in  their  estates,  and  bred  in  dissoluteness  and 
ignorance ;  their  parents'  debts  unsatisfied;  their  younger  bro- 
thers and  sisters  left  wholly  unprovided  for  ;  the  ancient  appear- 
ing tenure  of  mesne  lords  unregarded ;  estates  valid  in  law, 
and  made  for  valuable  considerations,  avoided  against  lawj 
and  the  -whole  land  filled  up  -with  the  frequent  swarms  of  es- 
cheators,  feodaries,  pursuivants,  and  others,  by  authority  of 
that  court.'''1136 

135  Burnet,  I.  16.  136  Plowclen,  I.  App.  84, 

46 


122  VINDIClJE    HIBERNICJE. 

The  ostensible  object  of  this  iniquitous  and 
oppressive  court,  was  to  educate  the  heirs  of  the 
great  Catholic  families  in  the  Protestant  religion, 
and  thus  "  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery  "  and 
then-  efforts  to  accomplish  this  grand  object, 
reconciled  the  zealots  of  that  period  to  the  in- 
fraction of  all  the  principles  of  justice  and  equity, 
and  to  the  demoralization  and  ruin  of  the  unhap- 
py objects  of  their  care. 

POINT  IV. 

Disabilities. 

The  fourth  point  which  I  have  undertaken  to 
prove,  is  that  the  Irish  Roman  Catholics,  as  such, 
laboured  under  most  severe  and  grievous  restric- 
tions and  disqualifications. 

The  oath  of  supremacy  is  a  virtual  renuncia- 
ation  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  ;  as  it  de- 
clares that  the  king  of  England  is  the  supreme 
head  of  the  church.  It  will  not  be  denied,  that 
this  is  as  complete  an  abjuration  as  would  be  the 
oath  of  a  Calvinist,  that  the  Pope  was  supreme 
head  of  the  Christian  church. 

Nevertheless,  no  person  could,  at  that  "  bless- 
ed" period  of  "  peace  and  security,"  when  "  not  a 
single  man  could  say  that  he  had  suffered  any 
prejudice  or  disturbance  for  his  religion"  without 
taking  this  oath, — 

I.  Act  as  magistrate  in  any  corporation : 


DISQUALIFICATIONS.  123 

II.  Take  any  degree  of  learning  in  the  uni- 
versity; 

HI.  Be  admitted  to  plead  at  the  bar  in  any  of 
the  courts  ; 

IV.  Fill  any  of  the  great  offices  of  state  ; 

V.  Sue  out  livery  of  his  lands,  or  ouster  le 
main  out  of  the  hands  of  the  king.* 

These  disqualifications,  it  is  true,  were  not 
always  enforced :  indeed,  in  many  cases,  necessity 
constrained  the  government  to  connive  at  the 
non-enforcement  of  them.  There  were  various 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  where  the  great  mass  of 
the  people  were  Roman  Catholics,  and  where 
there  were  so  few  Protestants  fit  for  filling  offices, 

*  "  Nobody  could  be  preferred  to  any  degree  of  learning  in 
an  university,  nor  sue  livery  of  his  lands,  or  ouster  le  main 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  king,  or  do  him  homage  in  order  to 
have  possession  of  his  estate,  without  first  taking  the  oath  [of 
supremacy.]  In  consequence  thereof,  no  peer  or  great  man 
who  refused  it,  could  be  admitted  to  the  dignity  of  a  privy  coun- 
sellor, or  be  advanced  to  any  office  of  state  that  might  give  him 
any  share  in  the  government  of  the  kingdom.  Nobody  could 
legally  act  as  a  mayor  or  magistrate  in  a  corporation,  without 
previously  qualifying  himself  for  those  charges,  by  the  taking 
of  this  oath."137 

"  The  recusant  lawyers,  a  powerful  body  of  men,  were  an- 
gry that  they  could  not  take  degrees  in  larv,  be  made  judges, 
or  regularly  admitted  by  any  court  to  plead  at  the  bar,  without 
taking  the  oath  of  supremacy  ;  though  they  probably  gained  as 
much  by  their  private  advice  and  chamber  practice,  with  less 
trouble  to  themselves,  and  less  hazard  to  their  reputation,  as 
they  could  have  done  by  the  displaying-  of  their  eloquence  in 
public."138 

137  Carte,  I.  43.  m  Ibid. 


124  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

that  they  were  obliged  to  admit  Catholics  into 
them.  But  the  disqualifications  were  constantly 
in  existence, — constantly  held  up  in  terrorem 
over  the  whole  body, — frequently  enforced  with 
rigour, — and,  in  a  word,  called  into  operation,  or 
suspended,  just  as  suited  the  purposes  of  the  ru- 
lers and  their  minions.  The  cases  already  stated, 
of  lining  the  aldermen  of  Dublin,  and  of  seizing 
i;  the  REVENUES  and  liberties  of  the  city  of  Water- 
ford,"  for  the  offence  of  choosing  magistrates 
who  would  not  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  inde- 
pendent of  numberless  others  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  Ireland,  in  almost  every  page,  bear  me 
fully  out  in  these  propositions ;  and  prove  the 
sacred  and  delicate  regard  to  truth,  and  the  fide- 
lity and  research  of  lord  Clarendon  and  Dr.  War- 
ner, when  they  state,  that  "  not  a  single  man 
could  say  that  he  had  suffered  any  prejudice  or 
disturbance  on  account  of  his  religion." 

Carte,  to  palliate  the  injustice  and  severity  of 
the  disqualifications  of  the  recusant  lawyers,  of- 
fers a  most  extraordinary  idea,  in  mitigation  of 
the  disadvantages  arising  from  them.  He  informs 
us,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  prefixed  note,  that  they 
"probably  [very  probably,  truly — and  very  wisely 
said]  gained  as  much  by  their  private  advice  and 
chamber  practice"  as  they  could  have  gained  by 
being  admitted  to  the  bar ;  and  (more  consola- 
tion !)  "  with  less  hazard  to  their  reputation." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  the  absurdity 
and  futility  of  these  opinions,  and  how  desperate 


BANISHMENT  OP  THE  CLERGY.      125 

must  be  the  cause  that  is  driven  to  such  a  defence. 
Suppose  a  decree  were  to  pass,  that  all  the  law- 
yers throughout  the  United  States,  who  are  not 
six  feet  high,  who  have  dark  hair,  or  grey  eyes, 
or  aquiline  noses,  or  fair  complexions,  were  to 
be  prohibited  from  pleading  in  our  courts  of  jus- 
tice— (and  these  criteria,  though  rather  more 
whimsical,  would  be  as  just  and  correct  as  the 
criterion  of  religious  opinions  :) — And  let  us  fur- 
ther suppose,  that  their  complaints  were  met  by 
the  cogent  and  convincing  answer,  that  "they 
would  probably  gain  as  much  by  chamber  practice 
and  private  advice,"  as  at  the  bar,  and  with  "  less 
hazard  to  their  reputation."  What  sentence 
would  be  pronounced  against  the  man  who  ora- 
cularly delivered  this  opinion  ?  He  would  be 
regarded,  and  with  justice,  either  as  a  confirmed 
knave,  or  a  consummate  fool. 

POINT  V. 

Banishment  or  suppression  of  the  Roman  Catholic 

clergy. 

During  lord  Clarendon's  imaginary  millenium, 
those  forty  years  of  "  Messed  peace  and  security" 
when  "  the  whole  nation  enjoyed  an  undisturbed 
exercise  of  their  religion,"  and  "  when  no  man 
could  say  he  had  suffered  prejudice  or  disturbance 
on  account  of  his  religion,"  of  the  various  pro- 
clamations against  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy,  I 


126  Y1NDICIJE    HIBERNIC-aJ. 

shall  notice  but  two  :  one  for  their  absolute  ban- 
ishment ;  and  the  other,  in  the  most  unqualified 
and  intolerant  manner,  prohibiting  them  from  the 
public  exercise  of  their  functions,  throughout  the 
whole  kingdom.  The  first  was  issued  by  lord 
Chichester,  in  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of 
James  I. ;  and  the  second  by  lord  Faulkland,  early 
in  the  reign  of  his  successor. 

James,  shortly  after  his  accession,  banished  the 
Roman  Catholic  priests  from  Great  Britain  ;  and 
"  by  a  like  proclamation  were  the  Popish  clergy 
of  Ireland  commanded  to  depart  within  a  limited 
time,  unless  they  consented  to  conform  to  the  laws 
of  the  land:'139 

"  Unless  they  consented  to  conform  to  the 
laws  of  the  land !"  Here  more  is  meant  than 
meets  the  ear.  Leland  was  too  courtly  to  state 
that  they  were  to  " depart"  unless  they  abjured 
their  religion.  But  this,  disguise  it  as  we  may. 
was  the  real  fact. 

The  second  proclamation  is  to  be  found  in 
Rushworth,  and  does  not  bear  any  date  ;*  but 

*  Extracts  from  a  Proclamation  by  Lord  Faulkland,  Lord 

Deputy  of  Ireland. 

"  Forasmuch  as  we  cannot  but  take  notice,  that  the  late  in- 
termission of  legal  proceedings  against  Popish  pretended  or 
titulary  arch-bishops,  bishops,  abbots,  deans,  vicars-general, 
Jesuits,  friars,  and  others  of  that  sort,  that  derive  their  pre- 
tended authority  and  orders  from  the  see  of  Rome,  hath  bred 
such  an  extraordinary  insolence  and  presumption  in  them,  as 

139  Leland,  II.  495. 


BANISHMENT    OF    THE    CLERGY.  127 

was  issued,  according  to  Borlase,140   April  1st, 
1629  ;  is  extremely  rigorous ;  and  goes  the  full 

that  they  have  dared  of  late  not  only  to  assemble  themselves  in 
public  places,  to  celebrate  their  superstitious  services  in  all 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  but  also  have  erected  houses  and  build- 
ings, called  public  oratories,  colleges,  mass-houses,  and  con- 
vents of  friars,  monks,  and  nuns,  in  the  eye  and  open  view  of 
the  state  and  elsewhere. 

"  These  are  therefore  to  will  and  require,  and  in  his  majes- 
ty's name  straightly  to  charge  and  command,  all  and  all  man- 
ner of  such  pretended  or  titulary  arch-bishops,  deans,  vicars- 
general,  arch-deacons,  and  others,  deriving  any  pretended  au- 
thority, power,  or  jurisdiction,  or  authority  from  the  see  of 
Rome,  that  they  and  every  of  them'  forbear  from  henceforth  to 
exercise  any  such  power,  jurisdiction,  or  authority,  within  this 
kingdom;  and  that  all  such  abbots, priors,  Jesuits,  friars,  monks, 
and  others  of  that  sort  as  aforesaid,  do  forthwith  break  up  their 
convents  and  assemblies,  in  all  houses  of  friars,  colleges,  mo- 
nasteries, and  other  places,  wheresoever  they  are  or  shall  be 
conventually  or  collegiately  assembled  together,  within  this 
kingdom,  and  to  relinquish  the  same,  and  to  disperse  and  se- 
parate themselves. 

"  And  that  all  and  every  of  the  orders  before  named,  and 
other  priests  -whatsoever,  do  from  henceforth  forbear  to  preach, 
teach,  or  celebrate  their  service,  in  any  church,  chapel,  or  other 
public  oratory  or  place,  or  to  teach  any  school,  in  any  place  or 
places  whatsoever  within  the  said  kingdom. 

u  And  we  do  further  charge  and  command  all  and  singular 
the  owners  of  such  houses  of  friars,  colleges,  monasteries, 
schools,  oratories,  mass-houses,  and  nunneries,  that  they,  and 
every  of  them  respectively,  in  default  of  the  persons  before- ' 
named,  their  voluntary  relinquishing  of  the  said  houses  of 
friars,  colleges,  monasteries,  schools,  oratories,  mass-houses, 
and  nunneries,  do  forthwith  expel  and  thrust  forth  all  and 
singular  such  friars,  Jesuits,  and  other  monastical  persons,  out 

140  Borlase,  1. 


128  VINDICLfc   HIBERNIC.E. 

length  of  suppressing  the  public  exercise  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  altogether:  for  their 
priests  were  prohibited  from  "  celebrating  their 
service  in  any  church,  chapel,  or  other  public 
oratory  or  place  whatever.'" 

And  to  aggravate  the  severity  of  this  proceed- 
ing, the  proclamation  was  calculated  to  barbarize 
the  nation,  by  debarring  the  great  body  of  them 
of  education,  and  thus  bringing  them  up  in  brutal 
ignorance.  The  priests,  who  were  at  that  period 
almost  the  only  school-masters  in  the  kingdom, 
were  prohibited  from  "  teaching  any  school,  in 
any  place  or  places  whatsoever  in  the  said  king- 
dom" The  mind  sickens,  ia  tracing  such  con- 
stant, unvarying  scenes  of  folly,  wickedness,  and 
tyranny,  unrelieved  by  any  thing  that  can  afford 
consolation  on  reflection,  or  redeem  the  charac- 
ter of  the  government  from  richly-earned  exe- 
cration. 

of  the  same ;  and  do  convert  the  same  to  more  lawful  uses, 
upon  pain  to  have  their  said  houses  seized  upon  to  his  majes- 
ty's use  ;  and  both  the  one  and  the  other  to  be  proceeded  against 
for  their  unlawful  assemblies,  and  maintenance  of  such  unlaw- 
ful conventicles  and  nurtures  of  children,  in  the  severest  man- 
ner that  by  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  kingdom,  and  ecclesi- 
astical government  of  the  same,  may  be  had  or  extended ; 
whereof  they  and  every  of  them  are  to  take  notice,  and  to  yield 
due  obedience  thereunto,  as  they  and  every  of  them  will 
avoid  his  majesty's  high  indignation,  and  the  consequence 
thereof."141 

141  Rushworth,  II.  21. 


SACRILEGE.  129 

POINTS  VI.  $  VII. 

To  establish  these  two  points,  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  state  one  strong  circumstance  of  sacri- 
legious violence,  which  would  have  disgraced  a 
band  of  Algerines  or  Ostrogoths ;  and  which, 
unaided  by  the  preceding  details,  would  settle  this 
question  for  ever. 

A  congregation  of  Roman  Catholics  were  as- 
sembled in  a  chapel  in  Dublin,  to  adore  the  Liv- 
ing God,  and  to  commemorate  the  death  of  that 
Jesus  Christ  whom  the  government  worshipped. 
This  daring  act,  of  a  people  who  "  enjoyed  the 
undisturbed  exercise  of  their  religion"  and  of 
whom  "  no  man  could  say  he  had  suffered  pre- 
judice or  disturbance  on  account  of  his  religion" 
excited  as  much  indignation  among  the  Privy 
Council,  as  if  they  had  been  engaged  in  some 
most  abominable  plot.  The  justices  accordingly 
despatched  to  the  chapel  a  host  of  sacrilegious 
ruffians,  of  whom,  to  their  eternal  dishonour,  the 
leaders  were  the  archbishop,  the  mayor,  and  re- 
corder of  Dublin.  They  entered  the  chapel,  in 
the  midst  of  divine  service  ;  dragged  the  priest 
from  the  altar ;  hacked  and  hewed  the  images 
and  other  ornaments;  and,  like  common  robbers, 
purloined  the  crucifixes,  copes,  and  chalices,  and 
other  valuable  articles.* 

*  "  In  this  year,  the  Roman  clergy  began  to  rant  it,  and  to 
exercise  their  fancies  called  religion,  so  publicly  as  if  they  had 
gained  a  toleration  :  for  whilst  the  lords  justices  were  at 

17 


180  VINDICJJE    HIBERNICJE. 

The  insulted  congregation,  as  soon  as  their 
amazement  and  terror  at  this  lawless  outrage 
had  subsided,  attempted  to  defend  their  altar, 
their  priest,  and  their  worship  :  but,  as  might  be 
expected,  they  were  defeated  by  the  soldiery, 
and  many  of  them  committed  to  prison,  with  the 
priests  and  friars. 

Of  this  atrocious  act,  of  which  every  one  of 
the  perpetrators  ought  to  have  been  shot,  fla- 
grante  delicto,  as  sacrilegious  burglars,  it  might 
be  expected  that  the  historians  would  express 
the  utmost  reprobation  and  indignation.  No  such 

Christ's  church,  in  Dublin,  on  St.  Stephen's  day,  they  -were 
celebrating  mass  in  Cook  street ;  which  their  lordships  taking 
notice  of,  they  sent  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  the  mayor,  she- 
riff", and  recorder  of  the  city,  with  a  file  of  musqueteers,  to 
apprehend  them ;  which  they  did,  taking  aivay  the  crucifixes 
and  paraments  of  the  altar ;  the  soldiers  hewing  down  the 
image  of  St.  Francis;  the  priests  and  friars  were  delivered  into 
the  hands  of  the  pursuivants,  at  whom  the  people  threw  stones 
and  rescued  them  ;  the  lords  justices  being  informed  of  this, 
sent  a  guard  and  delivered  them,  and  clapped  eight  Popish  al- 
dermen by  the  heels,  for  not  assistmg  their  mayor.  On  -this 
account,  Jlfteen  houses,  by  direction  of  the  lords  of  the  coun- 
cil in  England,  were  seized  to  the  king's  use ;  and  the  priests 
and  friars  were  so  persecuted,  that  two  of  them  hanged  them- 
selves in  their  own  defence."142 

"  The  lords  justices  sent  the  archbishop,  the  mayor,  sheriff, 

and  recorder  of  the  city,  to  apprehend  them,  which  they  did  : 

TAKING  AWAY"  [that  is,  piratically  plundering']  "  their  cruci- 

fxes,  chalices,  and  copes,  and  delivering  the  friars  and  priests 

into  the  hands  of  the  pursuivants."143 

142  Hammond  L'Estrange,  apud  Curry,  I.  115. 

143  Baker,  469. 


HISTORICAL    CHICANE.  131 

thing,  reader.  They  appear  to  justify  the  male- 
factors, and  to  throw  the  whole  censure  on  the 
wretched  and  oppressed  people,  whose  sole  crime 
wras  worshipping  the  Living  God  according  to  the 
dictates  of  their  consciences. 

It  is  impossible  to  read,  without  indignation, 
the  manner  in  which  this  flagitious  proceeding  is 
noticed  by  Carte  and  Leland.  The  former  states, 
that  the  recusants  "  took  greater  liberties,  in  con- 
tempt of  the  law"  than  the  state  could  "  indulge 
them  in"  or  they  practise  with  prudence.  They 
were  not  satisfied  with  "  the  enjoyment  of  their 
religion  in  a  private  way "  they  "  must  do  it  in 
a  public  manner"1"  and  "  when  the  magistrates 
attempted  to  apprehend  the  priest,  he  was  res- 
cued, with  horrid  affronts  to  the  archbishop  and 
mayor,  under  the  -very  nose  of  the  government." 
It  is  a  lasting  disgrace  to  "  the  nose  of  the  go- 
vernment," that  it  did  not  smell  out  the  real  ma- 
lefactors, and  punish  them,  instead  of  despatching 
them  on  so  foul  an  errand. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  stronger  instance 
of  historical  chicane  than  is  here  displayed ;  and 
it  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  Irish 
history  is  generally  written.  The  enormities 
perpetrated  on  the  Irish  are  softened  down  or 
palliated,  and  many  of  them  wholly  omitted ; 
while  the  magnifying  powers  of  the  microscope, 
or  the  inventive  talents  of  Munchausen,  are  ap- 

144  Carte,  I.  53. 


132  V1NDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

plied  to  depict  the  Irish  as  objects  of  abhorrence. 
Had  the  Roman  Catholics  been  engaged  in  some 
dangerous  conspiracy  to  subvert  the  government; 
in  the  act  of  enlisting  soldiers  for  that  purpose  ; 
or  had  they  in  preparation  some  "  infernal  ma- 
chine" to  blow  up  the  castle,  it  might  be  said,  that 
"  they  took  greater  liberties  than  the  state  could 
indulge  them  in."  But  to  use  such  language,  to 
mark  with  reprobation  the  mere  act  of  assem- 
bling peaceably  to  worship  God  in  the  manner 
practised  in  their  country,  and  throughout  the 
whole  of  Christendom,  for  ages,  displays,  quoad 
hoc,  a  most  disgraceful  iUiberality :  and  to  feign 
such  strong  sensibilities  for  the  "  horrid  affront" 
put  upon  a  mitred  ruffian?  who  was  resisted  in 
a  sacrilegious  attack  upon  the  altars  of  the  Living 
God,  is  inexpressibly  disgusting ;  and,  in  any 
independent  court  of  literature,  would  be  suffi- 
cient to  have  the  writer  expelled  from  the  ho- 
nourable corps  of  historians. 

Leland  informs  us,  that  "  the  incident"  (that  is, 
the  attack  on  the  priest,  the  altar,  and  the  con- 
gregation, and  the  resistance  on  the  part  of  the 
Catholics)  « was  represented  in  England  in  the 
most  offensive  manner,  and  seemed  to  reproach 
that  mistaken  lenity  which  had  encouraged  the 
recusants  to  this  outrage"  that  is,  gentle  reader, 
"  the  outrage"  of  repelling  a  savage  assault,  that, 
as  I  have  stated,  would  have  disgraced  an  Alge- 
rine  or  an  Ostrogoth.  «  It  was  deemed  neither 
safe  nor  politic  to  connive  at  such  insolence !  By 


HISTORICAL    HOTCH    POTCH.  133 

an  order  of  the  English  Council,  fifteen  religious 
houses  were  seized  to  the  king's  use :  and  the 
Popish  college,  erected  in  Dublin,  was  assigned 
to  the  university,  which  for  the  present  converted 
it  into  a  Protestant  seminary."145 

Such  is  the  miserable  manner  in  which  the 
hotch  potch,  palmed  on  the  world  as  history, 
is  written.  An  outrage  which  imperiously  re- 
quired the  most  glowing  language  of  abhorrence 
and  reprobation,  that  could  flow  from  the  pen  of 
a  Tacitus,  a  Juvenal,  or  a  Junius,  is  not  merely 
glossed  over  as  pardonable,  but  apparently  com- 
mended as  meritorious :  and  those  in  whose  per- 
sons the  most  sacred  rights  are  violated,  and  who 
are  rapaciously  despoiled  of  their  altars  and  their 
temples,  are  held  up  to  reprobation  as  criminals: 
and  this  by  writers  who  enjoy  no  small  degree  of 
reputation ; — how  well  deserved,  the  world  will 
judge. 

Suppose  that  we  admit  for  a  moment,  (and  the 
admission  must  be  but  momentary)  that  a  paltry 
minority  of  a  nation,  two-thirteenths  of  the  entire 
population,*  have  a  right  to  proscribe  the  great 
majority  from  any  particular  form  of  worship ; 
to  inflict  penalties  on  its  exercise ;  and  to  dictate 
any  other  that  may  seem  meet  to  them  :  suppose 
that  the  worship  practised  at  the  chapel  were  ma- 
nifestly illegal:  or  even  suppose  it  were  absolutely 

*  "  Before  the  war,  the  proportion  was  as  two  to  eleven."146 
145  Leland,  II.  8.  146  Petty,  18. 


134  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

idolatrous,  and  that,  instead  of  worshipping  the 
Living  God,  they  were  actually  worshipping  idols, 
the  work  of  men's  hands,  "  that  have  eyes  and 
see  not,  ears  and  hear  not."  Can  there,  even 
under  all  these  suppositions,  be  a  shadow  of  de- 
fence pretended  for  the  choice  of  the  time,  the 
place,  and  the  manner  of  perpetrating  this  act  of 
violence  ?  There  was  probably  no  other  country 
under  the  canopy  of  heaven,  but  Ireland,  where 
such  odious  sacrilege  would  have  been  perpetrat- 
ed, or  allowed  to  pass  with  impunity,  under  the 
auspices  and  by  the  direction  of  the  government. 

The  intent  of  this  base  procedure  is  unambigu- 
ous :  it  speaks  its  true  character  clearly  and  un- 
equivocally. It  was  an  effort  to  provoke  the 
wretched  people  to  insurrection,  in  order  to  re- 
new again  the  scenes  of  confiscation  and  proscrip- 
tion, which  fill  the  sickening  and  heart-rending 
pages  of  the  history  of  that  ill-fated  country.  If 
this  had  not  been  their  intention,  they  would  have 
let  the  worship  pass  over ;  waited  till  next  day  ; 
and  then  proceeded  against  the  "  idolatrous  Pa- 
pists" in  due  course  of  the  mild  laws  of  the 
country. 

When  the  intelligence  reached  the  court  of  king 
Charles,  instead  of  recalling  the  justices,  who  had 
abused  their  trust  by  promulgating  such  orders, 
and  punishing  the  perpetrators  of  the  outrage,  he 
issued  a  proclamation,  whereby  he  became  parti- 
ceps  criminis ;  and,  to  punish  the  outraged  people 
for  the  guilt  of  their  oppressors,  ordered  the 


SEIZURE    OF    CHAPELS.  135 

chapel  where  the  sacrilege  had  been  perpetrated 
to  be  razed  to  the  ground,  and  the  oppressed 
Catholics  to  be  robbed  of  the  rest  of  their  places 
of  worship.* 

*  Extracts  from  a  Letter  to  the  Lords  Justices  and  Council  of 
Ireland^  dated  January  31,  1629. 

"  By  your  letters,  we  understand  how  the  seditious  riot, 
moved  by  the  friars  and  their  adherents  at  Dublin,  hath  by 
your  good  order  and  resolution  been  happily  suppressed.  And 
we  doubt  not  but  by  this  occasion  you  will  consider  how  much 
it  concerneth  the  good  government  of  that  kingdom,  to  prevent 
in  time  the  first  growing  of  such  evils  :  for  where  such  people 
are  permitted  to  swarm,  they  will  soon  make  their  hives,  and 
then  endure  no  government  but  their  own,  which  cannot  other- 
wise be  restrained,  than  by  a  due  and  seasonable  execution  of 
the  laws,  and  such  directions  as  from  time  to  time  have  been 
sent  from  his  majesty  and  this  board. 

"  And  such  magistrates  or  officers,  if  any  shall  be  discover- 
ed, that  openly  or  underhand  favour  such  offenders,  or  do  not 
their  duties  in  suppressing  them,  and  punishing  the  offenders, 
you  shall  do  well  to  take  all  fit  and  safe  advantages,  By  the 
punishment  or  displacing  of  a  few,  to  make  the  rest  more  cau- 
tious. This  we  write  not  as  misliking  the  fair  course  you  have 
taken;  but  to  express  the  concurrence  of  our  judgment  with 
yours,  and  to  assure  you  of  our  assistance  on  all  such  occa- 
sions wherein  for  your  further  proceeding  we  have  advised, 
and  his  majesty  requireth  you  accordingly  to  take  order,  first, 

that  THE  HOUSE  WHERE  SO  MANY  FRIARS  APPEARED  IN  THEIR 

HABITS,  and  wherein  the  reverend  archbishop  and  the  mayor 
of  Dublin  received  their  first  affront,  BE  SPEEDILY  DEMOLISH- 
ED, and  be  a  mark  of  terror  to  the  resisters  of  authority :  and 
that  the  rest  of  the  houses  erected  or  employed  there  or  else- 
where in  Ireland,  to  the  use  of  superstitious  societies,  be  con- 
verted into  houses  of  correction,  and  to  set  idle  people  on 
work,  or  to  other  public  uses,  for  the  advancement  of  justice, 
good  art,  or  trade. 


136  VIJSiDlCJUE    HIBERNIC.E. 

When  such  ruffian  violence  was  perpetrated  by 
a  grand  dignitary  of  the  church,  in  the  capital,  by 
order  of  those  who  held  the  reins  of  government, 
and  afterwards  received  the  marked  approbation 
of  the  British  administration,  it  is  easy  to  conceive 
to  what  extent  the  example  would  be  followed 
throughout  the  kingdom  ;  how  deplorable  was 
the  situation  of  the  Catholics ;  what  a  wretched 
chance  of  redress  they  had  for  any  wrong  or 
violence  perpetrated  on  them ;  and  what  a  loath- 
some tissue  of  fables  every  man,  not  destitute  of 
truth,  honour,  honesty,  or  candour,  must  pro- 
nounce those  histories,  which,  for  the  most  sinis- 
ter purposes,  boldly  state  the  gross,  the  palpable 
falsehood,  that  "the  whole  nation,"  for  forty 

"  And  further,  that  you  use  all  fit  means  to  discover  the 
founders,  benefactors,  and  maintainers  of  such  societies  and 
colleges,  and  certify  us  their  names.  And  that  you  Jind  out 
the  lands,  leases,  rents,  or  revenues  applied  to  their  uses,  and 
dispose  thereof  according  to  the  law.  And  that  you  certify 
also  the  places  and  institutions  of  all  such  monasteries,  priories, 
nunneries,  and  other  religious  houses,  and  the  means  of  all 
such  persons  as  have  put  themselves  to  be  brothers  or  sisters 
therein,  especially  such  as  are  of  note,  to  the  end  such  evil 
plants  be  not  permitted  any  more  to  take  root  in  that  kingdom, 
which  we  require  you  to  take  care  of. 

Lord  Keeper.  Earl  of  Salisbury. 

Lord  Treasurer.  Earl  of  Kelley. 

Lord  President.  Lord  Viscount  Dorchester. 

Lord  Privy  Seal.  Lord  Newburgh. 

Lord  High  Chamberlain.  Mr.  Vice  Chancellor. 

Earl  of  Suffolk.  Mr.  Secretary  Cook. 

Earl  of  Dorset.  Sir  WilliamAlexander."147 

147  Rushworth,  II.  33. 


CLARENDON'S  DISHONESTY.  137 

years,  previous  to  1641,  "  enjoyed  the  undisturbed 
exercise  of  their  religion:  and  even  in  Dublin, 
where  the  seat  of  the  king's  chief  governor  was, 
they  went  as  publicly  and  as  uninterruptedly  to 
their  devotions,  as  he  went  to  his."14*    This  false- 
hood is  destitute  of  the  slightest  defence  or  exte- 
nuation.    It  is  not  on  an  abstruse,  doubtful,  or 
contested  point,  where,  even  with  the  best  inten- 
tions, error  is  not  easily  avoided,  and  where,  of 
course,  error  is  pardonable.     It  respects  facts  of 
the  utmost  notoriety,  to  bo  found  by  the  most  cur- 
sory glance  on  the  very  surface  of  history :  and  it 
is  not  extravagant  to  assert,  that  lord  Clarendon, 
when  he  lent  the  weight  of  his  name  to  the  story, 
and  committed  this  sweeping  declaration  to  pa- 
per, must  have  known  that  he  was  flagrantly 
violating  the  ninth  command  of  the  decalogue, 
and  "  bearing  false  witness  against  his  neighbour," 
to  blacken  the  already-too-much-defamed  charac- 
ter of  the  persecuted,  oppressed,  and  pillaged 
Roman  Catholics :  for  it  was  utterly  impossible 
for  him  to  have  been  so  conversant  with  public 
affairs,  or  to  have  read  history  as  he  must  have 
done,  without  being  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  infinite  variety  of  pains,  penalties,  and  disqua- 
lifications, under  which  the  Roman  Catholics  la- 
boured in  both  kingdoms ;  and  which  were  as 
ntterly  incompatible  with  the  state  of  things  he 

148  Clarendon's  I.  8. 
18 


138  TINDICIJE    IIIBERNICJE. 

depicted,  as  light  and  darkness,  heat  and  cold, 
vice  and  virtue,  are  incompatible  with  each  other. 
L'Estrange,  whom  I  quote  for  this  fact,  is  dis- 
posed to  he  witty  on  the  subject.     He  states, 
that  "  the  priests  and  friars  were  so  persecuted, 
that  two  of  them  hanged  themselves,  in  their  own 
defence."     This  is  a  truly  novel  mode  of  self- 
defence.     It  is,  however,  far  more  probable,  and 
almost  certain,  that  some  bloodthirsty  and  fanati- 
cal ruffians,  inspired  by  "  a  holy  abhorrence"  of 
the  "  superstitious  idolatries  and  abominations  of 
Popery,"  and  availing  themselves  of  the  infuriated 
spirit  of  the  government,  seized  these  unfortunate 
men  privately,  and  hanged  them  up,    without 
judge  or  jury.    Of  the  sanguinary  spirit  of  mobs 
and  factions,  when  merely  connived  at  by  the  con- 
stituted authorities,  and  still  more  when  counte- 
nanced and  excited  by  them,  the  world  has  had 
many  calamitous  instances,  in  ancient  and  mo- 
dern times  ;  among  which,  the  Roman  proscrip- 
tions,  and  the  Parisian  Septembrization,   stand 
pre-eminent.     But  whether  those  priests  died  by 
suicide  or  murder,  is  of  little  importance  here  : 
my  object  being  to  prove  the  existence  of  the 
persecution  of  a  people,  of  whom,  I  beg  leave 
once  more  to  repeat,  lord  Clarendon  and  Warner 
made  the  extravagant  declaration,  that  "  no  man 
could  say  that  he  had  suffered  prejudice  or  dis- 
turbance on  account  of  his  religion  ! !  !M 


DECEPTIONS    OF    CHARLES   I.  139 

Let  it  be  observed,  that  Borlase  in  his  Reduc- 
tion of  Ireland,149  and  Baker  in  his  Chronicles, 
both  state  the  fact  to  nearly  the  same  effect  as 
L'Estrange.  Baker  informs  us,  that  "  most  of 
their  houses  of  religion  were  immediately  seized 
into  the  king's  hands ;  and  such  inquisition  made 
after  the  rest,  that  two  priests  hanged  themselves 
at  the  apprehension  of  this  (as  they  called  it) 
persecution."150 

This  parenthetical  sentence  "  as  they  called  it," 
demands  attention.  It  can  have  but  one  mean- 
ing, which  is,  that  the  writer  did  not  himself  be- 
lieve or  admit  that  this  was  a  persecution.  It  is 
really  wonderful,  that  the  idolatrous  Papists 
should  be  so  absurd  as  to  call  it  a  persecution. 
Had  any  such  depredation,  indeed,  been  perpe- 
trated on  the  reformers  in  England  or  Scotland, 
it  would  have  truly  been  a  persecution  :  but 
against  idolatrous  Papists,  it  was  nothing  more 
than  a  due  execution  of  a  necessary  law,  in- 
tended to  put  a  period  to  their  "  idolatry." 

The  wickedness  of  this  procedure  is  so  great, 
that  it  needs  no  aggravation :  and  yet  it  is  at- 
tended with  circumstances  which  greatly  enhance 
its  deformity,  and  throw  the  character  of  the 
"  royal  martyr  "c  as  Charles  I.  is  absurdly  styled, 
into  deep  shade,  and  prove  him  to  have  been 
both  perfidious  and  ungrateful:  perfidious,  be- 
cause he  openly  violated  a  solemn  engagement ; 
and  ungrateful,  because,  in  return  for  signal  ser- 

"9  Borlase,  R.  207.  1M  Baker,  469. 


140  VINDICI.JE  HIBERXIC^E, 

vices  rendered  by  his  Catholic  subjects,  he  issued 
the  lawless  and  piratical  order  for  plundering 
them  of  their  chapels. 

In  1627,  the  affairs  of  this  monarch  were  in  a 
most  deranged  state.  He  was  engaged  in  a  war 
with  France,  deeply  in  debt,  and  much  distressed 
for  resources,  which  he  could  not  prevail  on  Par- 
liament to  afford.  In  this  emergency,  the  Irish 
Roman  Catholics  offered  to  support  constantly 
five  thousand  foot  and  five  hundred  horse,  pro- 
vided they  were  indulged  with  a  mere  toleration 
of  their  religion,  and  some  other  favours  of  minor 
importance.* 

This  proposition  excited  a  most  awful  outcry. 
The  archbishop  of  Armagh,  the  celebrated  Usher, 
and  all  the  other  dignified  clergy  of  the  establish- 
ed church,  with  a  most  miserable  spirit  of  bigot- 
ry and  intolerance,  worthy  of  that  persecuting 
and  fanatical  age,  but  disgraceful  to  the  actors, 
entered  a  most  solemn  protestf  against  the  mea- 

*  "  The  toleration  they  desired  was  no  more  than  some  re- 
spite from  the  oppressions  and  extortions  of  the  ecclesiastical 
courts ;  and  to  have  all  proceedings  against  them  in  those 
courts,  for  religion,  suspended;  to  be  released  from  those 
exorbitant  sums  which  they  were  obliged  to  pay  for  their 
christenings  and  marriages  ;  and  particularly  to  have  the  ex* 
travagant  surplice  fees  of  the  clergy,  and  the  extraordinary 
warrants  for  levying  them,  abolished."151 

f  "  The  religion  of  the  Papists  is  superstitious  and  idola- 
trous;  their  faith  and  doctrine  enormous  and  heretical ;  their 
church,  in  respect  to  both,  apostolical.  To  give  them,  there- 

m  Curry,  I.  109. 


CLERICAL    BIGOTRY    AND    PERSECUTION.      141 

sure,  as  "  an  abomination  and  toleration  of  idola- 
try ;  and  as  being  accessary  to  the  perdition  of  the 
seduced  people  who  perish  in  the  deluge  of  the 
Catholic  apostacy"  It  is  too  obvious  to  need 
enforcement,  that  if  the  Catholics  enjoyed  the 
" undisturbed  exercise  of  their  religion"  it  would 
have  been  unnecessary  to  offer  so  high  a  price 
for  a  mere  toleration :  nor  would  the  attempt  to 
procure  it  have  produced  such  a  clamour. 

Notwithstanding  this  intolerant  opposition,  a 
regular  compact  was  entered  into,  some  time 

fore,  a  toleration,  or  to  consent  that  they  may  freely  exercise 
their  religion,  and  profess  their  faith  and  doctrine,  is  a  griev- 
ous sin,  and  that  in  two  respects  ;  for  first  it  is  to  make  our- . 
selves  accessary  not  only  to  their  superstitious  idolatries  and 
heresies,  and  in  a  word  to  all  the  abominations  of  Popery,  but 
also  (which  is  a  consequent  of  the  former)  to  the  perdition  of 
the  seduced  people  •which  perish  in  the  deluge  of  the  Catholic 
apostacy ;  secondly,  to  grant  them  a  toleration  in  respect  of 
any  money  to  be  given,  or  contribution  to  be  made  by  them, 
is  to  set  religion  to  sale,  and  with  it  the  souls  of  the  people, 
whom  Christ  hath  redeemed  with  his  blood.  And  as  it  is  a 
great  sin,  so  it  is  also  a  matter  of  most  dangerous  consequence, 
the  consideration  whereof  we  commit  to  the  wise  and  judici- 
ous, beseeching  the  God  of  Truth  to  make  them,  who  are  in 
authority,  zealous  of  God's  glory,  and  of  the  advancement  of 
true  religion ;  zealous,  resolute,  and  courageous  against  all 
Popery,  superstition,  and  idolatry" 

James  Armachanus.  Andrew  Alackdens. 

Mai.  Casellen.  Tho.  Kilmore  and  Ardagh. 

Anthony  Medensis.  Theo.  Dromore. 

Tho.  Fern  and  Leghlin.  Mic.  Waterford  and  Lis- 

Robert  Dunensis.  more. 

Richard  Corke.  Fra.  Limerick.152 

152  Rushworth,  II.  22. 


142  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

afterwards,  between  Charles  I.  and  the  Irish 
Catholics,  whereby  they  pledged  themselves  to 
remit  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand pounds,  which  they  had  loaned  him ;  and 
also  to  grant,  in  the  three  ensuing  years,  three 
subsidies,  each  of  forty  thousand  pounds  ;*  witb 
which  they  religiously  complied.  In  return, 
Charles  engaged  to  grant  them  sundry  graces,  as 
they  were  styled,  or,  in  strict  propriety  of  speech, 
to  remove  sundry  oppressions  under  which  they 
groaned.  This  was  as  fair  a  contract  as  was  ever 
arranged.;  and  was  most  shamefully  evaded  by 
Charles. 

These  graces  were  to  be  digested  by  the  Irish 
Parliament  into  acts,  which  were  to  be  ratified, 

*  "  The  humble  petition  of  your  majesty's  subjects,  appoint- 
ed agents  to  prefer  certain  humble  requests  and  petitions  to 
your  highness,  in  the  behalf  of  your  kingdom  of  Ireland, 
"  Humbly  sheweth  : 

u  That  your  majesty's  suppliants  did,  in  behalf  of  your  sub- 
jects of  Ireland,  offer  unto  your  majesty  to  remit  and  release 
unto  your  highness  150,000/.  or  thereabouts,  already  borrowed 
from  them,  or  paid  to  your  majesty's  army  there  ;  and  further 
to  grant  three  subsidies,  to  be  paid  in  the  next  three  years, 
which  humble  offers  your  petitioners  are  now  duly  authorized 
to  make  ;  as  also  to  present  certain  humble  requests  to  your 
highness,  according  to  the  instructions  given  them  of  your 
majesty's  faithful  subjects  of  your  kingdom  of  Ireland  ;  which 
offers,  though  they  do  not  extend  to  that  greatness  as  from 
your  highness's  other  more  flourishing  kingdoms  may  be  ex- 
pected, yet,  considering  the  state  and  poverty  of  the  said  king- 
dom, they  are  as  much  as  the  subjects  are  possibly  able  to  af- 
ford at  this  time."153 

*s3  Rushworth,  II.  17. 


DECEPTION    OF    CHARLES   I.  143 

in  the  usual  form,  by  the  British  Privy  Council. 
Lord  Faulkland  accordingly  summoned  a  Parlia- 
ment to  meet  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  the 
contract  into  effect :  but,  by  two  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, passed  under  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth, 
it  was  ordained  that  no  Parliament  should  be  held 
in  Ireland,  without  "  license  obtained  of  his  ma- 
jesty, under  the  great  seal  of  England ;"  and  with 
this  formality  Lord  Faulkland  had  not  complied, 
very  probably,  as  Leland  clearly  intimates,11  by 
collusion  between  the  monarch  and  his  deputy. 
The  Privy  Council  of  England,  determined  not  to 
waive  any  of  their  privileges,  applied  to  the 
bench  of  judges  for  their  opinion  on  the  subject, 
who  pronounced  the  summons  illegal  and  void.* 
That  this  was  a  collusion  on  the  part  of  the 
prince,  is  reduced  as  near  to  certainty  as  in  such 
a  case  is  practicable.  Had  he  been  sincerely  dis- 
posed to  perform  his  engagements,  he  could  in 
one  hour  have  removed  the  difficulty  ;  and,  as  an 
honest  man,  he  ought  to  have  done  it.  But  he 
was  so  far  from  this  display  of  honour  and 

*  Extract  from  the  Opinion  of  the  Judges. 

"  We  have  taken  into  our  consideration  the  lord  deputy's 
commission,  wherein  he  hath  power  given  him  to  summon  the 
Parliament ;  but  that  is  limited  to  be  according  to  the  laws, 
statutes,  and  customs  of  that  kingdom,  and  with  the  king's 
consent  first  had,  and  not  otherwise ;  which  hath  not  been  ob- 
served in  the  summons  of  this  intended  Parliament,  in  any  of 
the  points  before-mentioned ;  and  therefore  this  summons,  not- 
withstanding that  power,  is  illegal  and  void."154 

154  Rush  worth,  II.  20. 


144  VINDICLB   HIBERNIC/E. 

integrity,  by  remedying  the  error,  and  calling  a 
Parliament  immediately,  that  none  was  held  for 
six  years  afterwards. 

The  laxity  of  the  early  writers  or  compilers  of 
history  on  the  subject  of  dates,  renders  it  difficult 
to  fix  the  chronology  of  these  facts  with  accuracy. 
It  shall  be  done  as  far  as  practicable. 

The  commission  to  the  Irish  agents  who  carried 
on  the  negotiation,  is  dated  August,  1627  ;  and 
they  arrived  in  London  in  September  of  that  year. 

The  negotiation  probably  lasted  two  months.  I 
cannot  find  the  date  of  lord  Faulkland's  summons: 
but  the  Parliament  was  to  have  met  in  November, 
1628.  The  opinion  of  the  judges  is  dated,  "Ser- 
geant's Inn,  October  2,  1628  ;"  and  the  vote  of 
the  Privy  Council  against  the  meeting  of  the 
Parliament,  which  does  not  appear  in  Rushworth, 
probably  issued  immediately.  But  instead  of  the 
promised,  the  dearly-purchased  graces,  lord 
Faulkland,  early  in  the  following  year,  issued  the 
most  outrageous  proclamation,  commanding  all 
the  priests,  monks,  and  friars  to  disperse  them- 
selves, and  to  give  up  their  convents,  colleges, 
monasteries,  and  other  places  where  they  colle- 
giately  or  conventually  assembled ;  of  which  the 
substance  may  be  seen  in  page  126. 

The  sacrilegious  burglary  which  has  been  de- 
tailed in  page  129,  and  which  took  place  in  1629. 
arose  from,  and  was  a  natural  consequence  of. 
this  proclamation,  which  was  obviously  intended 
to  lead  to  such  consequences,  and  to  the  depre- 


STAR-CHAMBER    COURT.  145 

dations  subsequently  perpetrated,  throughout  the 
kingdom,  on  the  chapels  and  other  religious  es- 
tablishments of  the  Catholics. 

That  this  whole  affair  is  as  complete  an  exem- 
plification of  the  Punica  fides  as  history  can  pro- 
duce, will  hardly  be  denied  by  any  candid  man 
in  Christendom. 


NOTE  I.  ON  CHAPTER  V. 

A  P.  112.  Star-Chamber  Court. .]  Although 
the  Star-Chamber  Court  is  introduced  times  with- 
out number  into  English  and  Irish  history,  few 
have  other  than  a  very  vague  idea  of  the  horrible 
injustice  of  its  proceedings.  I  quote  from  Rush- 
worth  the  sentence  pronounced  on  a  certain  Fitz- 
harris,  by  lord  Suffolk,  one  of  the  judges  in  the 
English  court,  of  this  title,  as  a  specimen  of  its 
lenity  and  humanity : 

"  My  lord  of  Suffolk  agreed  with  my  lord  Cottington  ;  and 
added  this,  to  have  Fitzharris  lose  one  ear  in  England;  an- 
other in  Ireland;  and  if  he  have  a  third  ear,  to  lose  it  in 
Scotland."151 

The  case  which  afforded  this  wonderful  display 
of  clemency,  was  as  follows :  lord  Strafford,  who 
was  excessively  intemperate  and  violent,  was 

1J1  Rush  worth,  III.  896. 
19 


146  Y1NDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

offended  by  a  certain  Robert  Esmond ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  depositions  of  some  bystanders, 
threatened  him  with  his  stick, — or,  as  is  more 
probable,  according  to  the  depositions  of  others, 
struck  him  with  it  on  the  head.  Esmond  died 
shortly  afterwards ;  and,  according  to  general 
belief,  of  the  stroke  of  the  stick.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  the  report  gained  ground;  and  Fitz- 
harris,  among  others,  had  mentioned  the  circum- 
stance, and  the  rumours  respecting  it.  For  this, 
he  and  a  number  of  persons  were  cited  before 
the  Star-Chamber  Court.  He  was  found  guilty, 
and  the  above  sentence  pronounced  on  him  by 
one  of  the  judges.  The  other  persons  accused 
were  most  ruinously  fined. 

NOTE  II.  ON  CHAPTER  V. 

B  P.  136.  The  horrid  affront  on  a  mitred 
ruffian.']  This  style  of  expression  towards  so 
elevated  a  character  as  an  archbishop,  will  offend 
the  eyes  and  the  ears  of  some  delicate  readers, 
who  will  regard  it  as  shocking  and  indecorous. 
But  I  have  not  lightly  adopted  it.  I  have  well 
weighed  the  matter,  before  I  determined  to  use 
it ;  and,  instead  of  any  apology,  make  no  scruple 
to  avow,  that  did  the  English  language  afford 
terms  of  reprobation  stronger  and  more  signifi- 
cant, but  not  scurrilous,  I  should  have  used  them. 
If  an  archbishop,  a  governor,  a  president,  a  king, 
or  an  emperor,  be  not  ashamed  to  act  like  a  nif- 


FLAGRANT    SACRILEGE.  147 

fian,  ought  we  to  be  either  afraid  or  ashamed 
to  style  him  a  ruffian  ?  Whatever  scruples  others 
may  have  on  this  subject,  I  have  none.  I  have 
called,  and  shall  continue  to  call,  throughout 
this  work,  men  and  things  by  their  proper 
names,  regardless  of  titles  or  dignities  :  and,  be- 
lieving that  the  crime  here  perpetrated  was  only 
second  to  murder,  and  that  none  but  a  ruffian 
would  contemplate,  none  but  a  ruffian  order,  and 
none  but  a  ruffian  undertake  its  commission,  I 
unhesitatingly  incur  the  responsibility  of  desig- 
nating it  by  its  peculiarly  appropriate  phrase. 
Indeed,  the  higher,  the  more  exalted  the  perpe- 
trator, the  more  justice  and  propriety  there  is  in 
marking  the  deed  with  the  strongest  language. 
Can  any  terms  be  too  strong  to  stamp  the  guilt 
of  a  minister  of  the  Living  God,  leading  a  furi- 
ous mob  to  destroy  the  altars  of  that  Living  God? 
"  A  ruffian,"  according  to  Sheridan,  is  "  a  brutal, 
boisterous,  mischievous  fellow !"  And  would  any 
but  a  most  "  brutal,  boisterous,  mischievous  fellow" 
head  a  licentious  band  of  mercenary  soldiers,  in 
an  attack  upon  an  unarmed  and  defenceless  body 
of  men,  women  and  children,  in  the  solemn  act 
of  worshipping  the  Living  God,  or  deface  and 
destroy  his  altars,  and  purloin  the  ornamen  s  con- 
secrated to  his  worship  ?  Were  the  question  taken 
on  this  point  among  a  million  of  candid  men. 
there  would,  I  feel  confident,  be  an  unanimous 
negative  vote. 


148  VIND1CIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

NOTE  III.  ON  CHAPTER  V. 

c  P.  139.  Royal  martyr.'}  In  one  particular 
sense,  there  is  some  slight  appearance  of  justice 
in  this  designation.  During  the  protracted  ne- 
gotiation with  the  parliament,  while  Charles  I. 
was  a  prisoner,  he  might  have  made  terms  with 
them,  had  he  consented  to  abandon  Episcopacy, 
and  to  establish  the  Presbyterian  religion.  His 
pertinacious  rejection  of  this  proposition,  lost  him 
the  support  of  those  who  would  otherwise  pro- 
bably have  once  more  placed  the  sceptre  in  his 
hands. 

NOTE  IV.  ON  CHAPTER  V. 

0  P.  142.  Jis  Leland  clearly  intimates.'}  At 
every  step  of  our  progress  through  the  Irish  his- 
tory, we  have  to  lament  and  censure  the  disinge- 
riuity  of  the  writers — the  suppressio  veri — the 
lenity  they  extend  to  the  oppressors  of  Ireland, 
and  the  severity  with  which  they  animadvert  on 
the  guilt,  real  or  supposed,  of  the  Irish.  This  is 
a  striking  case.  Charles,  as  stated  in  the  text, 
made  a  fair  contract  with  his  Irish  subjects.  They 
honourably  performed  their  part.  An  informality 
prevented  his  immediate  compliance.  That  infor- 
mality it  was  in  his  power  to  remove,  by  issuing 
a  license  for  the  meeting  of  the  Irish  Parliament, 
and  taking  order  that  all  the  requisite  forms 
should  be  observed :  and  his  failure  to  adopt  this 
measure,  was  as  base  and  as  fraudulent,  as  it 


DUPLICITY    OF    CHARLES   I.  149 

would  be  for  a  private  person,  who  had  sold  a 
house,  or  a  piece  of  land,  and  received  the  price, 
to  refuse  to  make  the  deed,  or  convey  the  pro- 
perty. And  how  does  Leland  record  this  shame- 
ful fact?  Why  he  smoothly  informs  us,  that 
"the  king's  sincerity  appeared  at  least  suspici- 
ozw."m  And  further :  "  The  king  stood  engaged, 
that  his  graces  should  be  confirmed  by  a  law  of 
Parliament :  and  the  insincerity  of  his  professions 
was  not  yet  completely  discovered."1*3  Had  such 
a  transaction  taken  place  on  the  part  of  the  Irish, 
all  the  powers  of  language  would  have  been 
exhausted  to  brand  them  with  infamy. 

The  duplicity  of  Charles  was  made  manifest, 
a  few  years  subsequent  to  this  period ;  and  stands 
recorded  in  his  own  hand-writing.  The  admi- 
nistration of  Ireland  was,  anno  1633,  confided  to 
lord  Strafford,  who  was  induced,  by  the  embar- 
rassment of  the  king's  affairs,  to  call  a  Parlia- 
ment, for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue  for  his 
master.  There  was  a  considerable  difficulty  in 
the  way,  to  evade  the  sacred  pledge  given  by 
Charles,  and  to  keep  the  Irish  in  temper,  without 
performance  of  the  contract.  Strafford,  bold, 
daring,  and  unprincipled,  took  upon  himself  the 
odium  of  the  non-compliance,  asserting  publicly 
to  Parliament,  that  he  had  not  communicated 
their  demands  to  Charles ;  although  his  own 
letters,  since  published,  prove  this  to  have  been 

152  Leland,  II.  570.  '»  Idem,  III.  3. 


150  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

a  flagrant  falsehood.  Charles,  delighted  and 
enraptured  to  be  screened  from  the  perform- 
ance of  his  engagement,  and  to  find  his  satrap 
assume  the  odium  of  the  perfidy,  of  which  his 
Irish  subjects  were  the  victims,  wrote  him,  with 
his  own  hand,  a  letter  of  the  most  unqualified 
approbation : 

"  Wentworth, 

"  Before  I  answer  any  of  your  particular  letters 
to  me,  I  must  tell  you  that  your  late  public  des- 
patch has  given  me  a  great  deal  of  contentment ; 
and  especially  for  the  keeping  off  the  envy  of  a 
necessary  negative  from  me  of  those  unreason- 
able graces  that  people  expected  of  me."154 

Perfidious  as  was  this  conduct,  I  do  not  pre- 
tend that  Charles  deserved  thereby  the  fate  that 
then  impended  over  him.  But  this  I  dare  aver, 
and  do  not  fear  much  contradiction,  that  it  must 
materially  diminish  the  commiseration  that  up- 
right men  might  feel  for  his  downfal. 

154  Strafford,  I.  331. 


(     151      ) 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Security  of  person,  during  lord  Clarendon's  mil- 
lenium.  Martial  law.  Acts  of  state.  Jurors 
punished  with  imprisonment  and  mutilation. 

"  This  tyrant,  whose  sole  name  blisters  our  tongues."155 

WE  have  considered  the  question  of  religious 
liberty,  during  the  forty  years'  millenium,  the 
glories  of  which  lord  Clarendon  has  so  elegantly 
recorded.  We  now  proceed  to  consider  that  of 
personal  security,  on  which  ground,  it  is  obvious, 
that  to  justify  the  noble  writer,  it  would  be  indis- 
pensably necessary  that  the  subject  should  be  free 
from  injury  or  molestation  in  his  person,  unless, 
by  the  infraction  of  some  known  law,  he  render- 
ed himself  amenable  to  its  penal  sanctions. 

This  was  so  far  from  being  the  case,  that 
throughout  this  whole  "  blessed  period  of  peace 
and  security,"  martial  law  was  uninterruptedly  in 
force,  and  carried  into  execution  whenever  and 
wherever  it  suited  the  purposes  of  the  govern- 
ment or  its  partisans. 

Acts  of  state  too,  or,  in  other  words,  acts  of  the 
Privy  Council,  had  all  the  force  of  the  laws  of 

155  Shakspeare. 


152  V1NDICIJE    HIBERNICJt. 

the  land  ;  and  were  enforced  by  arrest,  fine,  and 
imprisonment.* 

Jurors  who  refused  to  give  verdicts  agreeably 
to  the  wishes  of  the  judges  and  the  government, 
were  cited  before  the  Star-Chamber  Court,  and 
ruinously  fined,  and  most  grievously  imprisoned.! 

On  the  two  first  points,  the  characteristic  infi- 
delity of  the  historians  of  Irish  affairs  stands 
glaringly  conspicuous.  With  such  important 
features  in  the  political  economy  of  the  govern- 
ment, we  should  be  almost  wholly  unacquainted, 

*  Extract  from  the  Impeachment  of  lord  Str  afford. 

"  Article  4.  The  said  earl  of  Strafford  said  that  he  would 
make  the  earl  [of  Cork]  and  all  Ireland  know,  so  long  as  he 
had  the  government  there,  any  act  of  state,  there  made  or  to 
be  made,  should  be  as  binding  to  the  subjects  of  that  kingdom, 
as  an  act  of  Parliament  ,"156 

"  As  for  the  words,  he  confessed  them  to  be  true  ;  and 
thought  he  said  no  more  than  what  became  him  ;  considering 
how  much  his  master's  honour  was  concerned  in  him;  and 
that  if  a  proportionable  obedience  was  not  as  -well  due  to  acts 
of  state,  as  to  acts  of  Parliament,  in  vain  did  councils  sit  ;  and 
that  he  had  done  no  more  than  what  former  deputies  had 
done."157 

"  He  proved  by  the  lord  Dillon,  in  the  lord  Chichester's  and 
lord  Grandison's  time,  that  the  acts  of  state  were  by  the 
judges  reputed  as  laws  of  the  land  for  the  present,  and  pro- 
ceeded by  arrest,  imprisonment,  and  fines,  upon  contempt, 
which  Sir  Adam  Loftus  confirmed."158 

f  "  Concerning  the  sentencing  of  jurors,  and  the  questioning 
them  in  the  Star-  Chamber,"  said  lord  Strafford,  on  his  trial, 
"  it  is  true  ;  divers  of  these  sentences  were 


156  Baker,  499.  157  Frankland,  883. 

158  Nalson,  11.  58.  "9  Idem,  45. 


CONQUERED    COUNTRY.  153 

but  for  the  trial  of  lord  Strafford,  which  threw  a 
glare  of  light  on  these,  as  well  as  many  other  of 
the  heavy  grievances  of  the  country,  that  were 
by  the  historians  passed  in  silence,  or  glossed 
over  with  frothy  extenuations  and  mitigations. 

Lord  Strafford,  during  the  whole  of  his  admi- 
nistration, proceeded  on  the  iniquitous  principle, 
t;  that  Ireland  was  a  conquered  country,  and  that 
the  king  was  the  lawgiver,  in  all  matters  not  de- 
termined by  acts  of  Parliament."*  This  princi- 
ple he  openly  avowed  on  his  trial,  when  his  life 
was  in  jeopardy,  for  this  and  other  causes :  and 
this  fully  accounts  for  the  despotic  authority  he 
assumed, — for  his  outrageous  proceedings  with 
Parliament, — for  his  attempted  depredation  on 
the  province  of  Connaught,  which  shall  be  de- 
tailed in  a  future  chapter;  and  for  all  the  end- 
less variety  of  injustice  and  oppression,  which 
marked  his  despotic  career,  as  lord  deputy  of 
Ireland. 

One  awful  feature  of  his  administration,  which 
he  likewise  admitted  on  his  trial,  and  for  which 

*  Article  3,  of  the  Impeachment, 
"  He  did  declare  and  publish,  that  Ireland  was  a  conquef- 

ed  nation ;  and  that  the  king  might  do  with  t'hem  what  he 

pleased."™ 

"  '  True  it  is,'  he  said,  l  Ireland  was  a  conquered  nation ; 

which  no  man  can  deny:  and  that  the  king  is  the  lawgiver,  in 

matters  not  determined  by  acts  of  Parliament,  he  conceived  ajl 

loyal  subjects  would  grant.'  "161 

160  Baker,  499.  16J  Frankland,  883. 

20 


154  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

he  pleaded  precedent  as  a  justification,  was  send- 
ing parties  of  soldiers  to  execute  orders  of  state, 
or  decrees  of  courts.*  It  is  easy  to  conceive  the 
oppression  that  would  be  committed  by  such 
officers  of  justice,  let  loose  on  the  objects  of  his 
vengeance.  On  the  extent  of  this  grievance, 
which  existed  during  the  whole  of  lord  Claren- 
don's rtullenium,  the  evidence  of  Sir  Arthur  Ty- 
ringham,  who  was  cited  in  Strafford's  defence, 

*  "  Article  15.  That  the  said  earl  did,  by  his  own  authority, 
without  any  warrant  or  colour  of  law,  tax  and  impose  great 
sums  of  money  upon  the  towns  of  Baltimore,  Bandonbridge, 
Tallagh,  and  divers  other  towns  or  places,  in  the  said  realm 
of  Ireland  ;  and  did  cause  the  same  to  be  levied  upon  the  inha- 
bitants of  thos-e  towns  by  troops  of  soldiers,  with  force  and 
arms,  in  a  warlike  manner  :  and,  on  the  ninth  of  March,  in  the 
twelfth  year  of  his  now  majesty's  reign,  traitorously  did  give 
authority  unto  Robert  Saville,  a  sergeant-at-arms,  and  to  the 
captains  of  companies  of  soldiers  in  several  parts  of  the  realm, 
to  lie  on  the  lands  and  houses  of  such  as  would  not  conform  to 
his  orders,  until  they  should  render  obedience  to  his  said  or- 
ders and  warrants  ;  and  after  such  submission,  and  not  before, 
the  said  soldiers  to  return  to  their  garrisons  ;  and  did  also 
issue  the  like  warrants  tjinto  divers  others,  which  warrants 
were  in  warlike  manner  put  in  execution  accordingly  :  and  by 
such  warlike  means  he  did  force  divers  of  his  majesty's  sub- 
jects of  that  realm  to  submit  themselves  to  his  unlawful  com- 
mands."162 

To  this  article  the  earl  replied,  "  that  to  this  day  nothing 
hath  been  more  usual  in  Ireland,  than  for  the  governors  to 
appoint  soldiers  to  put  all  manner  of  sentences  in  execution  ; 
which  he  proved  plainly  to  have  been  done  frequently,  and 
familiarly  exercised  in  Grandisorfs,  Faulkland^s,  ChichesteSs, 
Wilmot's,  Cork's,  and  all  preceding  deputies' 


i62  Baker,  502.  163  Idem,  511. 


MARTIAL  LAW.  155 

throws  great  light.  He  deposed,  that  "  In  Faulk- 
land's  time,  he  knew  twenty  soldiers  assessed  upon 
one  man,  for  refusing  to  pay  sixteen  shillings 
sterling."164 

This  single  fact  contains  an  entire  volume  on 
this  subject.  What  an  awful  condemnation  it 
carries  to  the  authority  of  lord  Clarendon !  How 
does  his  "  blessed  state  of  peace  and  security" 
vanish  into  thin  air,  when  brought  to  the  test  of 
the  talisman  of  truth !  And  let  it  be  observed, 
that  this  was  an  illustration,  by  a  single  example, 
of  the  wretched  state  of  the  entire  nation,  experi- 
enced "  as  well  in  time  of  peace  as  war." 

Lord  Strafford,  when  answering  to  the  article 
of  his  indictment  on  the  subject  of  martial  law, 
replied,  "  It  has  been  always  in  force,  and  exe- 
cuted in  all  times  in  Ireland,  and  never  so 
sparingly  as  in  my  time.* 

"  I  dare  appeal  to  those  that  know  the  coun- 
try, whether  in  former  times  many  men  have  not 
been  committed  and  executed  by  the  deputies' 
warrants,  that  were  not  thieves  and  rebels,  but 

*  "  The  earl  answered,  that  the  lord  deputies  have  ever  ex- 
ercised martial  lawy  upon  the  march  of  the  armies,  as  well  in 
time  of  peace  as  war."165 

"  The  earl  of  Ely  was  sworn,  and  testified  that  martial  law 
was  in  use  in  the  kingdom  of  Ireland."166 

"  The  deputies  and  generals  of  the  army  have  always  exe- 
cuted martial  law,  which  is  necessary  there."1'7 

164  Baker,  511.  165  Nalson,  II.  60. 

166  Ibid.  167  Idem,  21. 


156  V1NDICUE   HIBERNIC^i. 

such  as  went  up  and  down  the  country.  If  they 
could  not  give  a  good  account  of  themselves,  the 
provost  marshal,  by  direction  of  the  deputies, 
using  in  such  cases  to  hang  them  up.  I  dare  say, 
there  are  hundreds  of  examples  in'this  kind."1™ 

In  support  of  these  allegations,  he  caused  lord 
Dillon  to  be  cited,  who  affirmed,  that  "  martial 
law  had  been  practised,  and  men  hanged  by  it,  in 
times  of  peace."169 

It  must  be  obvious,  even  to  a  cursory  observer, 
that  when  individuals  had  the  power  of  executing 
martial  law  on  persons  "  who  could  not  give  a 
good  account  of  themselves"  many  men,  obnoxi- 
ous to  the  ruling  powers,  would,  merely  on  that 
ground,  be  regarded  as  persons  "  who  could  not 
give  a  good  account  of  themselves  :"  and,  infer- 
ring from  known  principles  of  human  nature, — 
from  the  eternal  tendency  in  the  possessors  of 
uncontrolled  power  to  abuse  it, — from  the  ran- 
corous and  malignant  spirit  that  existed  towards 
the  Roman  Catholics, — and,  at  least  in  an  equal 
degree,  from  the  impunity  their  oppressors"  expe- 
rienced, it  is  by  no  means  improbable,  that  of  the 
"  hundreds  of  persons"  who  were  thus  hanged,  as 
"  not  able  to  give  a  good  account  of  themselves" 
there  were  many  incomparably  superior  in  worth 
and  standing  to  the  military  executioners,  by 
whose  sentence  they  were  hurried  to  their  last 
account,  with  "  all  their  sins  and  imperfections 
on  their  heads." 

^68  Nalson,  II.  115.  »69  Idem,  60. 


OPPRESSION    OF    JURIES.  457 

How  little  value  must  have  been  set  upon  hu- 
man life, — how  deplorable  the  waste  of  the  spe- 
cies,— what  scenes  of  carnage  and  desolation 
must  have  taken  place,  when,  in  a  time  of  peace, 
those  "  who  could  not  give  a  good  account  of  them- 
selves" were  liable  to  be  tried,  and  were  frequent- 
ly tried,  by  courts  martial,  and  hanged  !  Who 
was  to  decide  on  the  goodness  of  the  account? 
Probably,  in  most  cases,  a  merciless  wretch,  who 
united  in  his  person  the  three  characters  of  judge, 
jury,  and  executioner  !  What  a  millenium  !  What 
a  "  blessed  condition  of  peace  and  security !" 

The  imprisonment  of  juries  whose  verdicts 
displeased  the  courts  or  the  deputies,  was  another 
grievous  oppression,  and  an  instrument  whereby 
the  streams  of  justice  were  wholly  perverted  or 
poisoned.  It  is  obvious  that  the  fear  of  tedious 
imprisonment  and  of  ruinous  fines,  must  have  a 
pernicious  effect  on  juries,  and  frequently  influ- 
ence them  to  give  unjust  verdicts,  in  order  to 
rescue  themselves  from  danger.  No  man's  life, 
character,  or  estate  can  be  secure,  if  subject  to 
the  decision  of  a  jury,  when  fines  and  imprison- 
ment dance  before  their  mind's  eye,  as  a  reward 
for  incurring  the  displeasure  of  the  judges  or  the 
administration. 

We  have  the  evidence  of  lord  Strafford  him- 
self, strong  and  decisive,  on  the  subject  of  the 
imprisonment  of  jurors,  in  the  outrageous  case 
of  the  grand  jury  of  Galway,  who  were  fined 
four  thousand  pounds  each,  and  imprisoned  till 


158  VINDICIJE    III1JERNICJE. 

their  fines  were  paid,  for  a  verdict,  the  circum- 
stances of  which  require  a  particular  discussion. 
This  single  case,  as  a  fair  specimen  of  the  des- 
potic power  exercised  over  juries  generally, 
would  be  sufficient  to  explode  lord  Clarendon's 
picture  of  the  forty  years1  golden  age,  so  far  as 
respects  personal  security. 

But  fines  and  imprisonment  were  not  the  only 
bars  to  a  belief  in  lord  Clarendon's  "  blessed  state 
of  peace  and  security."  The  train  was  brought 
up  by  the  pillory  and  mutilation  of  members? 
under  the  arbitrary  sentences  of  the  Star-Chamber 
and  the  High  Commission  Courts. 

The  second  of  the  articles  of  impeachment 
preferred  by  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  against 
Richard  Bolton,  lord  chancellor  of  Ireland,  John, 
lord  bishop  of  Deny,  Sir  Gerard  Lowther,  and 
Sir  George  Ratcliffe,  states  that  they  "  have  per- 
petrated, practised,  and  done  many  traitorous  and 
unlawful  acts  and  things,  whereby  as  well  divers 
mutinies  and  rebellions  have  been  raised ;  as  also 
many  thousands  of  his  majesty's  liege  people  of 
this  kingdom  have  been  mined  in  their  goods, 
lands,  liberties,  and  lives ;  and  many  of  them,  be- 
ing of  good  quality  and  reputation,  have  been 
utterly  defamed,  by  pillory,  mutilation  of  mem- 
bers, and  other  infamous  punishments."110 

In  the  accusation,  moreover,  of  the  earl  of 
Straffbrd,  preferred  by  the  same  House  of  Com- 

170  Rushworth,  IV.  219. 


GRINDING   TYRANNY.  159 

mons,  it  is  stated,  that  "  persons  who  gave  ver- 
dicts according  to  their  consciences,  were  cen- 
sured in  the  Castle-Chamber,  in  great  fines; 
sometimes  pilloried,  with  loss  of  ears ;  sometimes 
bored  through  the  tongue;  and  sometimes  marked 
in  the  forehead  with  an  iron;  and  other  infamous 
punishments"1''1 

To  complete  the  picture,  and  to  evince  more 
fully  the  grinding  and  odious  tyranny  of  this  ba- 
shaw, I  shall  lay  before  the  reader  two  remark- 
able cases,  which  display  as  much  lordly  des- 
potism, as  much  malice,  and  as  much  inhumanity, 
as  are  to  be  found  united  in  any  part  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  eastern  sultans. 

Strafford  had  seduced  the  daughter  of  lord 
Loftus,  chancellor  of  Ireland,  and  member  of 
the  Privy  Council.  This  was  established  by  his 
letters,  found  in  her  drawers  after  her  death. 
Her  husband,  Sir  John  Gifford,  required  from  his 
father-in-law  a  greater  fortune  than  he  thought 
proper  to  bestow  upon  his  strumpet  daughter, 
the  deputy's  mistress.  Gifford,  by  a  paper  peti- 
tion, brought  the  affair  before  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, which  issued  a  decree  in  his  favour.  The 
chancellor,  relying  on  its  illegality,  refused  com- 
pliance ;  and,  in  punishment  of  his  contumacy, 
was  sequestered  from  his  seat  in  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, deprived  of  the  seal  as  chancellor,  and  com- 
mitted to  prison.  He  appealed  to  Charles,  for 

171  Journals,  I. 


160  V1ND1CIJE    UlBERNICuE. 

redress  against  such  flagitious  oppression:  but  the 
despotic  monarch,  determined  to  support  his  des- 
potic vicegerent,  rejected  the  petition :  and  the 
chancellor  was  reduced  to  the  humiliating  neces- 
sity of  deprecating  the  vengeance  of  the  insolent 
satrap,  by  an  acknowledgment  of  offence,  and  a 
request  of  pardon,172  for  injuries  which,  we  might 
almost  venture  to  assert,  deserved  the  untimely 
end  which  awaited  Strafford,  from  the  vengeance 
of  his  enemies  in  the  Long  Parliament.  Certain 
it  is,  that  many  men  have  lost  their  lives,  for  acts 
of  violence  inferior  in  atrocity  to  those  of  which 
the  lords  Loftus  and  Mountnorris  were  the 
victims. 

The  other  case  was  that  of  lord  Mountnorris. 
The  story  is  related  somewhat  differently  by  dif- 
ferent writers ;  but  I  shall  adhere  to  the  statement 
given  by  that  lord  himself,  on  the  trial  of  the 
impeachment  of  lord  Strafford. 

Lord  Mountnorris  had  been  threatened  with  a 
stick  by  the  deputy,  at  a  review ;  and  some  time 
afterwards,  a  relation  and  namesake  of  his,  who 
lived  with  lord  Strafford,  having  accidentally  hurt 
his  foot,  while  he  was  labouring  under  a  fit  of 
the  gout,  the  circumstance  was  mentioned  in  the 
hearing  of  lord  Mountnorris ;  and  it  was  said, 
that  perhaps  he  did  it  to  avenge  the  insult  his 
kinsman  had  received.  Mountnorris  replied,  that 
he  had  a  brother  who  would  not  have  taken  such 

172  Leland,  III.  45. 


HEARTLESS  OBDURACY.          161 

a  mode  of  avenging  his  cause.  These  expres- 
sions, after  a  considerable  lapse  of  time,  were 
reported  to  lord  Strafford,  who,  with  a  degree  of 
malignity  that  has  probably  never  been  exceeded, 
tortured  it  into  an  attempt  to  excite  mutiny,  and 
had  him  tried  by  a  court  martial.  The  proceed- 
ings before  the  court  were  as  wicked  as  the  ac- 
cusation was  unjust.*  Mountnorris  was  debarred 

*  Third  article  of  Impeachment. 

"  Upon  Saturday,  March  27th,  they  proceeded  to  the  sen- 
tencing lord  Mountnorris,  &c.  and  thereby  exerting  tyrannical 
power,  &c.  and  first  read  the  sentence,  reciting  the  king's  letter, 
commanding  a  council  of  war  to  sit  upon  the  lord  Mountnorris, 
a  captain,  &c.  for  inciting  revenge  against  the  lord  deputy, 
general  of  his  majesty's  army. 

"  Lord  Mountnorris  deposed,  That  he  was  called  to  a  coun- 
cil of  war,  charged  to  have  spoken  words  to  this  purpose  : 
That  being  told  that  a  kinsman  of  his  had  hurt  the  lord  depu- 
ty's gouty  foot,  he  should  say,  Perhaps  it  was  done  in  revenge 
of  that  public  affront  that  the  lord  deputy  did  me  formerly ; 
but  I  have  a  brother  that  would  not  have  taken  such  revenge. 
That  he  was  required  instantly  to  confess  or  deny  the  charge ; 
that  he  desired  time  to  answer,  but  was  denied,  as  also  to  pro- 
duce witnesses,  to  disprove  the  lord  Moor  and  Sir  Robert 
Loftus,  who  upon  oath  affirmed  it ;  that  thereupon,  in  half  an. 
hour,  sentence  was  pronounced  against  him  by  Sir  Charles 
Coote,  provost  marshal.  That  the  lord  deputy,  in  scorn,  told 
him  that  he  might  proceed  to  execution,  but  would  supplicate 
with  his  majesty  for  his  life,  and  rather  lose  his  hand  than  he 
should  lose  his  head. 

"  That  he  was  committed  to  prison  December  12th,  and 
bailed  out  the  18th,  the  physicians  making  oath,  he  was  in 
danger  of  his  life,  the  high  oppression  and  injustice  having 
thrown  him  into  a  desperate  sickness  ;  committed  again  1 1th 
of  April,  let  out  May  2d,  by  reason  of  sickness  ;  re-committed 

21 


162  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

the  opportunity  of  producing  witnesses  to  dis- 
prove the  accusation, — and  in  half  an  hour  was 
pronounced  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  cashiered 
and  shot.  He  languished  a  long  time  in  severe 
imprisonment,  and  was  not  finally  released  till 
he  had  made  the  most  humble  submission,  and 
after  an  expenditure  of  twenty  thousand  pounds. 
His  lady  wrote  as  affecting  a  letter*  to  the 

the  30th  January  following,  because  he  had  not  sued  out  his 
pardon,  and  there  continued  till  March,  1637.173 

*  The  lady  Mountnorris  to  the  lord  Strajford. 
"  My  lord, 

"  I  beseech  your  lordship,  for  the  tender  mercy  of  God, 
take  off  your  heavy  hand  from  my  dear  lord ;  and  for  her  sake 
who  is  with  God,  be  pleased  not  to  make  me  and  my  poor  in- 
fants miserable,  as  we  must  of  necessity  be,  by  the  hurt  you 
do  to  him.  God  knows,  my  lord,  that  I  am  a  poor  distressed 
woman,  and  know  not  what  to  say,  more  than  to  beg  upon  my 
knees,  with  my  homely  prayers  and  tears,  that  it  will  please 
the  Almighty  to  incline  your  lordship's  heart  to  mildness  to- 
wards him ;  for  if  your  lordship  continue  my  lord  in  restraint, 
and  lay  disgraces  upon  him,  I  have  too  much  cause  to  fear 
that  your  lordship  will  put  a  speedy  end  to  his  life  and  trou- 
bles, and  make  me  and  all  mine  forever  miserable.  Good  my 
lord,  pardon  these  woful  lines  of  a  disconsolate  creature,  and 
be  pleased,  for  Christ  Jesus'  sake,  to  take  this  my  humble  suit 
into  your  favourable  consideration,  and  to  have  mercy  upon 
me  and  mine ;  and  God  will,  I  hope,  reward  it  into  the  bosom 
of  you,  and  your  sweet  children  by  my  kinswoman ;  and  for 
the  memory  of  her,  I  beseech  your  lordship  to  compassionate 
the  distressed  condition  of  me, 

Your  lordship's  most  humble  and  disconsolate  servant, 

JANE  MOUNTNORRIS. 
This  13th  of  February,  1635-6. 

Endorsed,  "  A  copy  of  the  lady  Mountnorris's  letter  to  the 
173  Nalson,  II.  39. 


HEARTLESS  OBDURACY.         163 

deputy  as  ever  was  penned,  soliciting  mercy  for 
her  husband  ;  but  he  was  inexorable.  She  like- 
wise made  the  most  urgent  solicitations  to  Charles 
for  his  interference,*  but  equally  in  vain.  He  was 

©arl  of  Strafford,  when  her  husband  was  in  prison,  under  the 
sentence  of  death  by  martial  law  :  and  he  was  so  hard-hearted 
as  he  gave  her  no  relief."174 

*  Copy  of  the  lady  Mountnorris1  s  Petition  to  his  Majesty, 
•with  his  Majesty's  answer. 

"  To  the  king's  most  excellent  majesty,  the  humble  petition 
of  the  lady  Mountnorris. 

"  Most  gracious  sovereign, 

*'  Having,  by  several  petitions,  humbly  presented  the  sor- 
rows of  her  heart  and  soul  to  your  sacred  majesty,  in  the  behalf 
of  her  condemned  husband,  who  hath  suffered  in  honour,  health, 
and  imprisonment,  for  a  word  misinterpreted,  and  already  unto 
twenty  thousand  pounds  lost  in  estate,  unparalleled  precedents 
for  a  peer  of  that  realm ;  and  still  pursued  in  the  castle  cham- 
ber, in  Ireland,  where  he  can  expect  but  sad  events,  if  your 
majesty's  impartial  justice  redeem  him  not.  He  hath  been  a 
careful  and  faithful  servant  in  chief  place  to  your  majesty's 
blessed  father,  for  forty  years  ;  and  if  he  hath  erred  through 
human  defects,  he  most  humbly  craveth  pardon,  and  layeth 
himself  at  your  majesty's  feet,  to  do  with  him  whatsoever 
your  majesty  shall  command.  Her  humble  suit,  on  her  knees, 
is  no  more,  but  that  your  sacred  majesty  will  command  his 
coming  into  England,  being  now  useless  here,  his  places  taken 
from  him,  his  health  impaired,  and  his  estate  ruined ;  and  she 
and  her  twelve  children  shall,  as  in  duty  bound,  pray  for  your 
majesty's  long  and  happy  reign  over  us." 

"  At  the  Court  at  Windsor,  18th  July,  1636. 
"  His  majesty  is  pleased,  that,  upon  such  a  submission  made 
by  the  lord  Mountnorris,  as  the  lord  deputy  of  Ireland  shall 
approve  of,  he  shall  have  his  liberty  to  come  into  England ; 
whereof  the  lord  deputy  is  to  take  notice,  and  give  order 
herein  accordingly. 

FRAN.  WiNDEBANK."175 

174  Clarendon's  S.  P.  I.  449.  17i  Idem,  594. 


164  VINDICL2E    HIBERNICJE. 

determined  not  to  impair  the  despotic  authority 
of  his  representative,  by  interposing  the  royal 
clemency  between  him  and  any  of  the  objects  of 
his  malice  or  vengeance. 

A  few  revolving  years  presented  to  the  lips  of 
the  obdurate  favourite,  and  his  equally  obdurate 
monarch,  the  bitter  chalice  of  heartless  persecu- 
tion, which  they  had  held  forth  to  those  of  the 
heart-broken  mourner.  The  conduct  of  Charles, 
on  this  occasion,  is  among  the  clearest  proofs 
he  ever  afforded  of  an  unrelenting  disposition. 
Never  was  there  a  stronger  claim  to  the  exercise 
of  clemency  ;  and  never  did  the  lordly  insolence 
of  an  overbearing  satrap  more  fully  require  a 
humiliating  degradation.  The  most  zealous  ad- 
vocates of  the  unfortunate  monarch  cannot  deny 
that  this  is  an  indelible  blot  on  his  escutcheon. 

When  such  elevated  characters  met  such  a  fate, 
we  may  well  conceive  how  dreadful  must  have 
been  the  situation  of  the  nation  at  large,  how 
grinding  the  tyranny  under  which  they  groaned, 
and  how  unfounded  lord  Clarendon's  dreams  of 
a  "  blessed  state  of  peace  and  security" 

It  may  be  objected,  that,  as  these  noblemen 
were  not  Roman  Catholics,  their  cases  do  not 
apply.  This  objection  is  of  no  avail.  It  rather 
strengthens  than  enfeebles  my  argument.  Tyran- 
ny  ran  riot  with  far  more  impunity  over  the 
Roman  Catholics  than  over  the  Protestants.  The 
oppression  of  six  of  the  former  would  not  excite 
so  much  clamour  as  that  of  one  of  the  latter. 


(      165      ) 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Further  review  of  Clarendon's  millenium.  Plots 
and  conspiracies.  Droppers  of  letters.  Whole- 
sale spoliations  in  Ulster.  Law,  conscience,  and 
honour  of  James  I.  Sir  John  Davies.  Frontless 
fraud  and  chicane. 

WE  have  examined  the  correctness  of  lord 
Clarendon's  fascinating  portrait  of  the  Irish  mil- 
lenium, that  "blessed  condition  of  peace  and 
security,"  which  continued  "during  the  whole 
happy  reign  of  king  James,"  and  was  "  increased 
and  improved  under  his  late  majesty,"  so  far  as 
respects  the  holy,  the  sacred  right  of  adoring  the 
Living  God  as  conscience  dictates ;  and  also  as 
respects  the  security  of  person.  It  now  comes 
before  us  on  the  question  of  security  of  the  rights 
of  property,  the  universal  stimulus  to  the  exer- 
cise of  all  the  talents  and  endowments  bestowed 
upon  us  by  our  Creator. 

The  noble  author  informs  us,  that  "  whatsoever 
their  land,  labour,  or  industry  produced,  was  their 
own,  being  free  from  having  it  taken  from  them 
by  the  king,  on  any  pretence  whatsoever." 

Of  this  specious  tale,  it  is  sufficient  to  say,  that 
it  is  just  as  fair  and  as  correct  a  portrait  as  the 


166  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

religious  one  which  we  have  reviewed.  Claren- 
don's regard  to  truth  ran  pari  passu  in  both 
cases.  I  hope  to  make  it  appear,  that,  during  the 
whole  period  embraced  in  his  millenium,  there 
was  hardly  a  man  in  the  kingdom  whose  property 
was  secure.  Under  the  most  frivolous  pretexts, 
the  nobility  and  gentry  were  plundered  of  estates 
which  had  remained  in  their  families  for  ages  ; 
and  such  scenes  of  rapine  and  depredation  were 
exhibited,  as  never  were  exceeded  in  any  coun- 
try in  the  world,  in  a  time  of  peace. 

These  depredations  were  of  two  kinds :  by  the 
government,  on  a  large  scale,  but  confined  to 
particular  situations ;  and  by  fraudulent  and  ra- 
pacious individuals,  on  a  smaU  scale,  but  extended 
all  over  the  country. 

To  present  the  subject  more  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly to  the  reader,  I  shah1  consider  each 
branch  separately ;  and,  although  the  govern- 
ment, throughout  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and 
Charles  I.  maintained  an  almost  unceasing  pre- 
datory warfare  on  individual  property,  yet  in  this 
review,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  the  three  great 
cases : — 

I.  The  lawless  spoliation  in  Ulster,  where  six 
counties  were  at  once  seized  by  king  James  ; 

II.  The  seizure  of  a  large  portion  of  King's 
and  Queen's  counties,  Longford,   Leitrim,  and 
Westmeath ; 

III.  The  projected  seizure  of  the  entire  pro- 
vince of  Connaught  by  Strafford,  the  final  accom- 


REGAL,    SPOLIATION.  165 

plishment  of  which  was  prevented  solely  by  the 
civil  wars  in  Scotland  and  England. 

I.   The  Spoliation  of  Ulster. 

The  unceasing  rapine  perpetrated  on  the  Irish, 
for  four  hundred  years,  from  the  invasion  by 
Henry  II.  till  the  reign  of  James  I.  was  spe- 
ciously covered  with  the  mantle  of  rebellion, 
which  was  always  within  reach.  The  deputies 
of  the  kings  of  England,  or  the  deputies  of  those 
deputies,  or  even  the  provost  marshals,  could,  at 
any  time,  to  suit  their  purposes,  excite  a  rebel- 
lion, or  what,  in  the  castle  style,  was  denominated 
a  rebellion.  Every  act  of  resistance  of  insult, 
outrage,  or  aggression,  was  thus  designated  in 
proclamations,  and  afterwards  in  histories.  The 
prescription  was  simple.  It  had  been  administer- 
ed times  without  number,  and  never  failed  of 
success.  It  was  only  to  make  an  inroad,  or  to 
commit  some  depredation  on  such  of  the  Irish 
nobility  or  gentry  as  might  be  selected  for  the 
purpose,  the  more  flagrant  the  better ;  provoke 
them  to  resistance,  as  I  have  already  stated  ;  then 
proclaim  them  traitors,  and  let  the  armies  loose 
to  destroy  them. 

The  pedantic  James  changed  the  system  ;  and 
substituted  the  fraud  of  the  fox  for  the  violence 
of  the  lion.  He  accomplished  the  same  end, 
without  the  expense  of  raising  a  soldier,  or  firing 
a  gun  ;  and  acquired,  without  disbursing  a  shil- 
ling, six  entire  counties  in  one  province,  and 


168  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

nearly  five  in  another.  Pretended  plots  and  con- 
spiracies were  easily  fabricated ;  they  were  un- 
expensive ;  and  succeeded  to  admiration,  so  as 
to  render  unnecessary  the  apparatus  of  a  rebel- 
lion, which  would  have  obliged  the  "peace-loving" 
James  to  open  the  doors  of  the  temple  of  Janus, 
to  which  he  had  an  unconquerable  aversion. 

A  catch-penny  letter  was  dropped  in  the  castle, 
containing  an  absurd  and  contemptible  develop- 
ment of  a  plot,  of  which  the  earls  of  Tyrone  and 
Tyrconnel  were  asserted  to  be  the  principal 
agents.*  It  was  pretended  to  be  from  a  Catholic, 

<  ••  - 

*  The  import  of  the  letter  was  as  follows  :  "  That  he  was 
called  into  company  by  some  Popish  gentlemen,  who,  after 
administering  an  oath  of  secrecy,  declared  their  purpose  to 
murder  or  poison  the  deputy,  to  cut  off  Sir  Oliver  Lambert,, 
to  pick  up  one  by  one  the  rest  of  the  officers  of  state,  to  oblige 
the  small  dispersed  garrisons  by  hunger  to  submit,  or  to  pen 
them  up  as  sheep  to  their  shambles.  That  the  castle  of  Dub- 
lin, being  neither  manned  nor  victualled,  they  held  as  their 
own;  that  the  towns  were  for  them,  the  country  with  them, 
the  great  ones  abroad  and  in  the  North  prepared  to  answer  the 
first  alarm ;  that  the  powerful  men  in  the  West  are  assured  by 
their  agents  to  be  ready  as  soon  as  the  state  is  in  disorder. 
That  the  Catholic  king  had  promised,  and  the  Jesuits  from 
the  Pope  had  warranted,  men  and  means  to  second  the  first 
stirs,  and  royally  to  protect  all  their  actions.  That  as  soon  as 
the  state  is  dissolved,  and  the  king's  sword  in  their  hands, 
they  will  elect  a  governor,  chancellor  and  council,  despatch 
letters  to  king  James  I.  trusting  to  his  unwillingness  to  em- 
bark in  such  a  war,  and  to  his  facility  to  pardon,  would  grant 
their  own  conditions  of  peace  and  government,  with  toleration 
of  religion  :  that  if  the  king  listen  not  to  their  motions,  then 
that  the  many  days  spent  in  England  in  debates  and  prepara- 
tions would  give  them  time  enough  to  breathe,  fortify,  and 


LETTER-DROPPING   TRICK.  169 

who  had  been  tampered  with  by  the  traitors,  and 
whom  they  had  endeavoured  to  seduce  into  the 
conspiracy,  but  whose  loyalty  rendered  him  in- 
corruptible. The  conspirators,  it  was  stated  in 
the  letter,  had  determined  on  poisoning  the  de- 
puty, cutting  off  Sir  Oliver  Lambert,  picking  up, 
one  by  one,  the  rest  of  the  officers,  starving  the 
garrisons,*  ^c.  £jc.  It  is  almost  as  stupid  and 
clumsy  a  performance  as  the  depositions  respect- 
ing the  apparitions  at  Portnedown  bridge,  or  those 
about  the  invulnerable  woman,  which  may  be 
seen  in  page  41.  It  carries  the  strongest  marks- 
of  fabrication  on  its  face. 

furnish  the  maritime  coasts ;  and  at  leisure  call  to  their  aid  the 
Spanish  forces  from  all  parts."  The  writer  of  the  letter  de- 
clares, "  That  he  interposed  some  doubts  on  them,  which  they 
readily  answered ;  and  he  pretended  to  them  to  consent  to 
further  their  projects,  and  that  he  took  the  method  of  this  let- 
ter, to  give  notice  of  their  designs,  though  he  refused  to  be- 
tray his  friends  ;  in  the  mean  time  he  would  use  his  best  en- 
deavours to  hinder  any  further  practices."  And  he  concludes, 
"  That  if  they  did  not  desist,  though  he  reverenced  the  Mass 
and  Catholic  religion  equal  to  any  of  them,  yet  he  would 
make  the  leaders  of  that  dance  know,  that  he  preferred  his 
country's  good,  before  their  busy  and  ambitious  humours."176 

*  "  A  letter  dropt  in  the  Privy  Council  Chamber,  intimated 
a  traitorous  scheme  of  rebellion  formed  by  the  earls  of  Tyrone 
and  Tyrconnel,  and  other  Irish  lords  and  gentlemen  of  the 
north  ;  that  they  had  solicited  assistance  from  Spain  and  Brus- 
sels, and  intended  to  begin  the  war  with  surprising  the  castle 
of  Dublin,  and  assassinating  the  lord  deputy  and  council."17' 

176  Plowden,  I.  App.  48,  177  Leland,  II.  498. 

22 


170  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

This  trick  of  fabricating  plots,  and  dropping 
letters  to  betray  them,  had  been  long  in  use,  and 
was  continued  through  the  entire  century.*  It 

*  This  trick  was  successfully  carried  into  ope- 
ration, during  the  administration  of  the  marquis 
of  Ormond,  after  the  restoration,  and  excited 
such  an  alarm  in  the  public  mind,  and  such  a 
terror  and  abhorrence  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
that  they  were  completely  defeated  in  their  at- 
tempts to  procure  redress  of  their  grievances,  or 
restoration  of  the  property  of  which  they  had 
been  despoiled.  For  this  express  purpose  it  was 
devised.f 

f  "  The  Papists  (under  his  government)  were  in  no  appre- 
hensions of  extirpatic||  or  other  violent  measures,  the  dread  of 
which  had  hurried  them  into  the  late  rebellion.  This  mode- 
ration of  the  lord  lieutenant  was  not  agreeable  to  some  persons, 
who  possibly  imagining  that  he  might  be  driven  out  of  it  by 
the  danger  of  assassination,  dropped  letters  in  the  streets  of 
Dublin,  intimating  a  conspiracy  formed  for  murdering  his 
grace  ;  and  several  pretended  to  give  an  account  of  what  they 
had  heard  or  suspected  of  such  a  design."178 

"  A  letter  addressed  by  an  unknown  person  to  lord  Mount 
Alexander,  in  the  county  of  Down,  warned  him  of  a  general 
massacre  intended  by  the  Irish,  The  style  was  mean  and 
vulgar ;  nor  was  the  information  on  that  account  less  plausible. 
It  was  confident  and  circumstantial ;  and  pointed  out  Sunday, 
the  ninth  day  of  December,  as  the  precise  time  when  this  bloody 
design  was  to  be  executed,  without  distinction  of  sex,  age,  or 
condition.  The  like  intelligence  was  conveyed  to  some  other 
gentlemen  of  the  northern  province  :  and  whether  these  letters 
Avere  the  contrivance  of  artifice,  or  the  effect  of  credulity,  their 
influence  was  wonderful."179 

178  Carte,  II.  481.  m  Leland,  IV.  229. 


FLIGHT    OP    TYRONE    AND    TYRCONNEL.         171 

forms  an  important  feature  in  the  history  of  the 
oppressions  of  the  Irish,  as  it  was  a  potent  and  in- 
fallible instrument  to  crush  and  destroy  them.  It 
therefore  requires  a  particular  discussion,  which 
it  is  my  intention  to  bestow  on  it,  in  a  future 
part  of  this  work. 

Let  it  suffice,  so  far  as  respects  the  present 
question,  that  means  were  used  to  terrify  the 
earls,  who,  in  consequence,  fled  the  kingdom. 

In  this  flight  there  is  something  mysterious, 
which,  at  this  distance  of  time  and  place,  and  in 
the  wretched  state  of  Irish  history,  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  develop.  The  earls  might  have  been  guil- 
ty, and  have  fled  through  consciousness  of  their 
crimes :  but  it  is  to  the  last  degree  unlikely ;  for, 
as  Leland  observes,  "  It  seems  extraordinary,  that 
the  northerns,  who  were  still  smarting  under  the 
chastisement  they  had  received  in  the  late  rebel- 
lion, whose  consequence  and  influence  were  con- 
siderably diminished,  and  who  were  very  lately 
reconciled  to  government,  should  precipitately 
involve  themselves  in  the  guilt  of  a  new  rebel- 
lion."180 And  it  will  not  be  denied,  that,  if  they 
were  guilty,  there  would  have  been  some  evi- 
dence to  substantiate  their  guilt,  which  never  was 
produced :  for  it  is  hardly  within  possibility,  that 
a  plot  of  so  great  magnitude  as  was  pretended, 
should  have  existed,  without  affording  such  evi- 
dence. James  I.  finding  the  clamour  that  was 

*w  Leland,  II.  498. 


172  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC-fc. 

excited  in  Europe,  by  the  merciless  spoliations 
and  depredations  practised  in  Ulster,  issued  a 
proclamation,  in  which  he  lavished  the  most 
scurrilous  abuse  on  the  earls,  utterly  destitute  of 
truth.  He  charged  them,  among  other  things, 
with  regarding  "  murder  as  no  fault ',  marriage  of 
no  use,  nor  any  man  worthy  to  be  esteemed  va- 
liant, that  did  not  glory  in  rapine  or  oppres- 
sion."181 This  tirade  is  as  excessively  gross  and 
unseemly,  as  it  is  wholly  destitute  of  truth,  and 
is  a  disgrace  to  the  memory  of  the  royal  pedant. 
There  never  was  a  period  in  Ireland,  that  could 
justify  this  Billingsgate  attack. 

Dr.  Leland,  assuming  that  the  earls  published 
no  vindication  of  themselves,  seems  disposed  to 
infer  from  thence,  that  their  silence  arose  from 
the  consciousness  of  their  guilt,  which  made 
them  acquiesce  in  the  justice  of  their  fate.  But 
there  is  no  satisfactory  proof  of  this  silence :  for 
the  non-appearance  of  such  a  vindication,  above 
an  hundred  and  thirty  years  afterwards,  in  the 
time  of  Leland,  is  by  no  means  to  be  admitted 
as  a  proof,  or  even  a  presumption,  that  it  was 
not  published ;  and  far  less  will  it  warrant  the 
inference  that  the  doctor  is  willing  to  draw  from 
it.  Rapin  states,  that  they  "  gave  out  that  the 
outrages  committed  on  the  Catholics  had  induced 
them  to  leave  their  country."183  He  does  not 
state  in  what  form  they  "gave  out"  this  defence : 

181  Leland,  II.  500  m  Rapin,  VIII.  69. 


JAMES  I.'S  PLEDGE  UNREDEEMED.     173 

whether  orally  or  in  a  written  vindication.  The 
latter,  however,  is  the  more  probable  course. 
But  we  have  no  proof  that  this  was  the  reason 
they  "gave  out"  for  their  flight :  it  rests  on  the 
single  declaration  of  Rapin ;  and  the  various  in- 
stances we  have  seen  of  the  characteristic  infide- 
lity and  illiberality  of  the  historians  of  Irish  af- 
fairs, in  plain  and  simple  points,  impose  on  us 
an  imperious  duty  to  receive  their  accounts  with 
great  circumspection,  in  cases  involved  in  diffi- 
culty or  uncertainty. 

On  this  question,  the  reasoning  of  Dr.  Curry 
is  so  strong  and  conclusive,  that  there  needs  no 
apology  for  laying  it  before  the  reader  : 

"  The  king  himself  was  so  apprehensive  that  this  affair  of 
the  earls  4  might  blemish'  (as  he  expresses  it,  in  a  proclama- 
tion on  that  occasion)  '  the  reputation  of  that  friendship  which 
ought  to  be  mutually  observed  between  him  and  other  princes, 
that  he  thought  it  not  amiss  to  publish  some  such  matter,  by 
way  of  proclamation,  as  might  better  clear  men's  judgments 
concerning  the  same.'  At  the  same  time  solemnly  promising 
*  that  it  should  appear  to  the  rvorld  as  clear  as  the  sun,  by 
evident  proof,  that  the  only  ground  of  these  earls'  departure, 
was  the  private  knowledge  and  inward  terror  of  their  own 
guiltiness.'  But  neither  in  that  proclamation,  nor  in  any  other 
authentic  instrument,  nor  in  any  manner  whatever,  did  his  ma- 
jesty deign,  ever  after,  to  enlighten  the  world,  even  with  the 
least  glimpse  of  evident  proof,  that  such  was  the  only  motive 
of  these  earls'  departure.'  And  I  shall  leave  it  to  the  decision 
of  every  candid  reader,  whether  the  non-performance  of  his 
majesty's  solemn  promise  be  not  a  better  negative  proof  of  the 
nullity  and  fiction  of  this  conspiracy  of  the  earls,  than  the  bare 
non-appearance  of  a  memorial  in  their  vindication  can  be 
deemed  of  its  reality."183 

183  Curry,  I.  86. 


174  VINDICL&    HIBERNICJK. 

An  account  of  the  discovery  of  the  conspiracy, 
entirely  different  from  the  foregoing,  has  been 
published :  for  the  trick  of  the  letter  was  found 
to  be  too  gross,  and  had  been  worn  threadbare. 
It  is  stated  by  Carleton,  bishop  of  Chichester,  that 
the  earl  of  Tyrone  having  possessed  himself  of 
some  lands  belonging  to  the  bishop  of  Meath,  the 
latter  applied  to  O'Cahan,  one  of  the  conspirators, 
for  information  on  the  subject  of  those  lands, 
which  he  promised  to  furnish.  The  bishop  ac- 
cordingly brought  him  to  Dublin,  to  give  testi- 
mony on  the  subject.  Process  was  issued  against 
the  earl,  ordering  him  to  appear  in  that  city,  to 
answer  the  bishop  of  Berry's  claim,*  but  without 

*  "  Tyrone,  understanding  the  bishop  sought  to  recover  the 
lands  of  the  bishopric,  told  the  bishop  thus  much,  '  My  lord, 
you  have  two  or  three  bishoprics,  and  yet  you  are  not  content 
with  them  :  you  seek  the  lands  of  my  earldom.'  '  My  lord,' 
quoth  the  bishop,  4  your  earldom  is  swoln  so  big  with  the 
lands  of  the  church,  that  it  will  burst,  if  it  be  not  vented.' 

"  The  bishop,  intending  in  a  lawful  course  to  recover  the 
lands  lost,  found  that  there  was  no  man  could  give  him  better 
light  and  knowledge  of  th6se  things  than  O'Cane,  who  had 
been  great  with  Tyrone ;  and  to  make  use  of  him  was  a  matter 
of  difficulty  :  yet  some  means  being  used  to  him,  he  came  of 
his  own  accord  to  the  bishop,  and  told  him  that  he  could  help 
him  to  the  knowledge  of  that  which  he  sought :  but  he  was 
afraid  of  Tyrone.  *  Nay,'  said  the  bishop,  '  I  will  not  trust 
you ;  for  I  know  that  one  bottle  of  aqua  vitae  will  draw  you 
from  me  to  Tyrone.' 

"  Whereupon  he  took  a  book,  and  laid  it  on  his  head,  say- 
ing, '  Ter  luiro,  ter  luiroj  which,  my  lord  of  Meath  said,  (who 
told  me  this  story)  is  one  of  the  greatest  kind  of  affirming  a 
truth  which  the  Irish  have  :  and  after  this  ceremony  perform- 
ed, they  keep  their  promise. 


CLUMSY  FABRICATION.  175 

reference  to  any  conspiracy,  or  dropped  letter. 
"  There  was  no  other  intention  then  but  in  a 
peaceable  way  to  bring  the  suit  to  a  trial :"  for, 
let  it  be  well  weighed,  THE  COUNCIL  THEN  KNEW 

NOTHING   OF    THE    CONSPIRACY.184 

These  accounts  are  in  direct  opposition  to  each 
other,  and  prove  the  rottenness  of  the  affair. 
Dr.  Carleton's  narrative  is  a  wretched,  improba- 
ble tale :  but  if  it  were  true,  then  the  story 
of  the  dropped  letter  is  obviously  a  falsehood  : 
and  if  the  letter  were  really  dropped,  and  led  to 
the  discovery  of  the  conspiracy,  then  is  the 

"  O'Cane,  using  this  ceremony,  promised  to  reveal  all  that 
he  knew  in  that  matter,  if  he  would,  on  the  other  side,  promise 
him  to  save  him  from  the  violence  of  Tyrone,  and  not  to  de- 
liver him  into  England,  which  he  promised  to  do. 

"  Whereupon  the  bishop  resolved  to  bring  him  to  the  coun- 
cil of  Ireland,  there  to  take  his  confession.  Thus  they  coming 
peaceably  to  the  council,  the  confession  of  O'Cane  was  taken. 
After  this,  process  were  sent  to  Tyrone,  to  warn  him  to  come, 
at  an  appointed  time,  to  answer  to  the  suit  of  the  lord  bishop  of 
Derry.  There  was  no  other  intention  then  but  in  a  peaceable 
manner  to  bring  the  suit  to  a  trial.  But  behold  the  burden  of 
an  evil  conscience  !  Tyrone  had  entered  into  a  new  conspiracy, 
to  raise  another  rebellion :  of  this  conspiracy  was  O'Cane. 
This  thing  rvas  secret :  THE  COUNCIL  KNEW  NOTHING  OF  IT. 
Tyrone,  being-  served  with  process  to  answer  the  suit,  began  to 
suspect  that  this  was  but  a  plot  to  draw  him  in ;  that  surely 
all  the  treason  was  revealed  by  O'Cane,  whom  he  knew  to  be 
of  the  conspiracy ;  that  the  pretence  was  a  process  and  a  trial 
in  law,  but  THE  INTENT  WAS  TO  HAVE  HIS  HEAD.  Upon  this 
bare  suspicion,  Tyrone  resolved,  with  such  other  as  was  in  the 
conspiracy,  to  fly ;  and  thereupon  fled  out  of  Ireland,  with  his 
confederates,  and  left  all  those  lands  in  the  north  of  Ireland."185 

184  Carleton,  233.  185  Idem,  232. 


176  YIND1CLE    H1BERNHJJE. 

bishop's  account  false.  We  leave  the  reader  to 
settle  the  question  of  fraud  between  them ;  and 
venture  to  submit  what  appears  a  much  more 
rational  view  of  the  affair  than  is  given  by  either 
of  the  statements. 

The  greedy  courtiers,  who  finally  obtained 
possession  of  the  immense  estates  of  the  earls, 
were  hungering  after  them,  and  anxious  to  find 
some  pretext  for  a  seizure.  They  had  recourse 
to  the  clumsy  contrivance  of  the  letter,  the  con- 
tents of  which  were  probably  magnified  and  ex- 
aggerated to  the  most  extravagant  degree,  accom- 
panied with  rumours  and  threats  of  a  rigorous 
course  to  be  pursued  with  them,  if  they  came  to 
Dublin ;  at  the  same  time  issuing  process  for 
Tyrone  to  appear  there.  Thus  he  and  those 
implicated  with  him  in  the  dropped-letter-contri- 
vance,  were  placed  in  the  dilemma,  to  attend, 
and  probably  be  attainted,  or  to  refuse,  and  be 
proclaimed  rebels  and  traitors,  and  pursued  with 
fire  and  sword,  as  was  the  usual  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding in  such  cases.  In  these  trying  circum- 
stances, they  fled  for  safety  to  the  continent. 
But  so  far  as  respects  the  present  object,  the  dis- 
proof of  Clarendon's  millenium,  it  is  of  little 
importance  what  construction  the  reader  puts  on 
this  statement.  It  is  barely  submitted,  without 
any  concern  whether  it  be  admitted  or  rejected, 
as  beyond  comparison  more  probable  than  the 
letter-dropping  affair,  or  the  idle  story  of  a 
Catholic  conspirator  betraying  his  dearest  friend 


FORERUNNERS  OF  REBELLION.      177 

and  conspiring  accomplice,  and  running  volun- 
tarily into  danger  of  his  neck  and  estate,  to  make 
discoveries  of  property  belonging  to,  and  for  the 
benefit  of,  an  entire  stranger,  and  a  Protestant ! 

The  case  of  an  earl  of  Tyrone,  perhaps  the 
same  person,  under  queen  Elizabeth,  affords  a 
specimen  of  the  wretched  flimsiness  of  the  pre- 
texts made  use  of  to  involve  the  Irish  nobility  in 
the  charge  of  treasonable  conspiracies. 

"  The  lord  deputy  and  council  (says  Sir  James  Ware) 
certified  her  majesty  of  the  daily  seditious  practices  of  the  earl, 
which  they  looked  upon  to  be  forerunners  of  rebellion  :  how 
he  sent  to  Mac  Connel,  who  was  a  chief  among  the  Island 
Scots,  many  of  his  men,  upon  condition  to  receive  supplies 
from  him  upon  any  occasion  whatsoever  he  required ;  how  he 
claimed  the  chief  men  of  Ulster  to  depend  on  him  as  his 
vassals ;  how  he  had  sent  his  son  to  be  fostered  among  the 
0" Cohans,  to  whom  he  had  formerly  been  a  great  enemy; 
which  showed  a  great  combination  to  make  way  for  his  future 
greatness;  fostering  being  accounted  the  greatest  bond  of 
amity  among  the  Irish.  They  concluded  with  an  earnest 
request,  that  some  treasure  might  be  sent  over  to  supply  the 
soldiers'  wants."186 

"  Though  Tyrone  had  served  against  Macguire,  and  re- 
ceived a  wound  in  the  service,  yet  his  refusal  to  deliver  the 
sons  of  Shane  O'Neal,  after  their  escape  out  of  the  castle  of 
Dublin,  when  required  so  to  do,  together  with  his  frequent 
complaints  against  the  lord  deputy,  the  marshals,  and  the  gar- 
rison soldiers,  gave  sufficient  ground  to  believe  that  he  only 
covered  his  treacherous  intentions,  till  he  might  be  ready  to 
put  them  in  execution."187  Excellent  proofs,  most  assuredly  ! 

The  case  of  Shane  O'Neal,  the  chief  potentate 
of  Ulster,  during  the  same  reign,  is  still  more  in 

186  Ware,  Eliz.  40.  m  Idem,  47. 


178  VINWICLZE    HIBERNICJE. 

point.  His  conspiracy  was  not  discovered  by 
"  a  dropped  letter"  but  revealed  to  a  servant,  at 
a  drinking  bout.  The  stoiy  is  narrated  with 
great  naivete,  by  Sir  James  : 

"  At  this  time,  the  lord  lieutenant  received  some  intimation 
that  Shane  O'Neal  was  contriving  new  conspiracies"16* 

How  do  you  suppose,  gentle  reader,  he  re- 
ceived this  intimation,  and  what  were  the  con- 
tents of  it  ?  Attend  : 

"  A  kinsman  of  his,  [Shane  O'Neal's]  drinking  in  company 
with  the  collector  of  the  archbishop  of  Armagh's  revenues  at 
Drogheda,  was  heard  to  swear  by  his  soul,  that  his  cousin  -was 
a  patient  fool,  and  so  were  his  ancestors,  in  taking  an  earldom 
from  the  kings  of  England,  when,  by  right,  themselves  were 
kings.  He  further  added,  by  way  of  question,  to  the  bishop's 
servant,  Is  it  not  so  ?  The  man  was  glad  to  comply,  and  to  say 
it  was  so,  seeing  six  of  the  Irish  in  the  room,  with  their  skeans 
by  them.  But  as  soon  as  he  came  to  his  master,  Adam  Loftus, 
he  cried  out,  Pardon  me,  master.  The  archbishop  asking  him, 
Why,  what  hast  thou  done  ?  He  told  him  the  whole  story. 
Whereupon  he  -wrote  to  the  lord  lieutenant  about  z£."189 

Certainly  this  was  a  most  important  communi- 
cation to  the  lord  lieutenant,  on  which  the  safety 
of  the  state  depended,  and  precisely  on  a  level 
with  the  dropped  letter,  which  cost  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  people  five  hundred  thousand 
acres  of  land.  Never,  before  or  since,  has  any 
letter,  whether  dropped  or  sent  through  the  post- 
office,  afforded  such  a  harvest. 

In  consequence  of  this  "  conspiracy,"  so  very 
dangerous  in  itself,  so  miraculously  discovered. 

188  Ware,  Eli.z.  7.  1W  Ibid. 


SPOILING    THE    EGYPTIANS.  179 

and  so  accurately  and  minutely  detailed,  troops 
were  raised  against  the  rebel,  many  of  his  fol- 
lowers killed,  and  "great  preys  of  cattle  made.'"190 
And  be  it  observed,  that  throughout  the  whole  of 
the  history  of  Ireland,  "preys  of  cattle"  form  a 
most  important  item  in  the  spoils  of  war  gained 
by  the  lords  deputies. 
Some  time  afterwards, 

"  On  the  complaint  of  the  nobility,  the  lord  deputy  raised  a 
great  army  of  English  and. Irish,  in  order  to  root  out  Shane 

O'Neal."191 

Here,  the  reader  will  observe,  there  was  no 
"dropped  letter"  no  "conspiracy,"  no  "rebel- 
lion ;"  but  the  first  family  in  Ireland,  with  all  its 
numerous  branches  and  dependencies,  to  the 
amount,  perhaps,  of  thousands,  was  to  be  "  rooted 
out"  on  the  complaint  of  "the  nobility!"  and 
two  or  three  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  for- 
feited, "  for  the  promotion  of  religion  and  civili- 
zation." But  it  was  all  fair.  It  was  only  "  spoiling 
the  Egyptians"  those  wretches  that  neither  "  built 
houses  nor  planted  orchards." 

Those  who  carefully  examine  the  sorry  ro^ 
manc.es  above  quoted,  will  find  it  difficult  to 
decide  which  is  most  wonderful,  the  stupidity 
with  which  they  are  contrived,  or  the  wickedness 
which  employed  such  means  to  despoil  an  op- 
pressed and  unoffending  people. 

But  however  the  question  of  the  guilt  or  inno- 
cence of  the  earls  may  be  determined,  it  does  not 

190  Ware,  Eliz.  7.  "l  Idem,  10. 


180  VINDICOE    HIBERNICJE. 

affect  the  character  of  the  proceedings  of  king 
James,  after  "  their  fugacy"  as  it  is  quaintly 
termed  by  Sir  Thomas  Philips.  Those  proceed- 
ings displayed  such  a  flagitious  spirit  of  depreda- 
tion, such  a  total  disregard  of  private  right  and 
the  calls  of  humanity,  such  a  wanton  waste  of 
human  happiness,  and  such  base  hypocrisy,  in 
cloaking  it  with  a  regard  for  the  civilization  and 
the  eternal  happiness  of  the  natives,  as  cannot  be 
exceeded  in  the  history  of  human  injustice. 

For  admitting  the  guilt  of  the  earls  to  have 
been  fully  and  completely  established,  they  and 
their  accomplices  alone  ought  to  have  suffered 
for  it.  It  was  a  violation  of  every  principle  of 
honour  and  justice,  to  involve  the  innocent  with 
the  guilty, — to  proscribe  indiscriminately  the  en- 
tire population  of  six  out  of  the  thirty-two  coun- 
ties contained  in  the  kingdom.  This  was  the 
course  pursued  in  the  plantation  of  Ulster,  of 
which  such  erroneous  statements  have  been 
made,  in  all  the  histories  that  embrace  the  reign 
of  James  I.  with  hardly  an  exception. 

By  the  "fugacy"  of  the  earls,  every  man  in 
the  six  counties  was  regarded  as  having  at  once, 
ipso  facto,  forfeited  his  lands,  which  became 
vested  in  the  crown,  to  be  granted,  at  the  plea- 
sure of  the  monarch,  to  whomsoever,  and  on 
whatsoever  terms,  he  judged  proper. 

There  were  three  divisions  made  of  the  spoils  : 

First,  to  "  English  and  Scotch,  who  are  to  plant 
their  proportions  with  English  and  Scottish  te- 
nants " 


SPOILING    THE    EGYPTIANS.  181 

Secondly,  to  "  servitors  in  Ireland,  who  may 
take  English  or  Irish  tenants,  at  their  choice ;" 

Thirdly,  to  "natives  of  those  counties,  who 
are  to  be  freeholders."192 

The  largest  and  fairest  portion  of  the  lands 
was  bestowed  on  the  favoured  few  of  the  first 
class  ;A  to  the  next  were  bestowed  those  of  the 
second  quality;  and  the  despoiled  Irish  were 
planted  on  the  inferior  quality. 

But  a  malignant  feature  of  this  transaction  re- 
mains behind, — a  feature  unique  in  its  character. 
The  wretched  Irish,  deprived  of  their  paternal 
homes,  driven  out  to  the  most  sterile  spots,  were 
barbarously  cut  off  from  all  chance  of  ever  re- 
gaining their  possessions  ;  as  the  undertakers  and 
servitors  were  bound,  under  penalty,  never  to 
sell  to  the  "  mere  Irish,"3  nor  to  Roman  Catholics 

A  Orders  and  Conditions  of  the  Plantation  of  Ulster. 
"  8.  That  in  the  surveys,  observations  be  made  what  pro- 
portions, by  name,  are  fittest  to  be  allotted  to  the  Britains, 
what  to  the  servitors,  and  what  to  the  natives  ;  wherein  this 
respect  is  to  be  had,  that  the  Britains  be  put  in  places  of  best 
safety  ;  the  natives  to  be  dispersed ;  and  the  servitors  planted 
in  those  places  -which  are  of  greatest  importance  to  serve  the 
rest."193 

B  Articles  concerning-  the  undertakers. 

"  7.  The  said  undertakers,  their  heirs  and  assigns,  shall  not 
alien  or  demise  their  portions,  or  any  part  thereof,  to  the  mere 
Irish,  or  to  such  persons  as  will  not  take  the  oath,  which  the 
said  undertakers  are  bound  to  take  by  the  former  article  :  and 
to  that  end,  a  proviso  shall  be  inserted  in  their  letters  patents. 

192  Hibernica,  106.  J9J  Idem,  126. 


182  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC.E. 

of  any  nation  :  for  the  disposal  to  persons  who 
did  not  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  and  "  con- 
form themselves  in  religion  according  to  his  ma- 
jesty's laws"194  was  rigorously  prohibited  and 
punished. 

Now,  reader,  are  you  not  petrified  with  as- 
tonishment, at  this  view  of  the  grand  and  mag- 
nificent scheme,  which  has  immortalized  the 
memory  of  the  first  Stuart  that  wielded  the  triple 
sceptre  of  the  British  dominions  ? 

To  bring  this  point  home  to  the  feelings  of  an 
American  reader,  I  venture  to  state  an  analogous 
case,  to  which  I  request  particular  attention. 
Suppose  that  the  resistance  of  America,  in  1776, 
had  terminated  as  fatally  as  the  various  insurrec- 
tions of  Ireland  have  done ;  or,  to  come  nearer 

"  10.  The  said  undertakers  shall  not  alien  their  portions 
during  five  years  next  after  the  date  of  their  letters  patents, 
but  in  this  manner,  viz.  one  third  part  in  fee  farm ;  another 
third  part  for  forty  years  or  under ;  reserving  to  themselves 
the  other  third  part,  without  alienation,  during  the  said  five 
years.  But  after  the  said  Jive  years,  they  shall  be  at  liberty 
to  alien  to  all  persons  EXCEPT  THE  MERE  IRISH,  and  such 
persons  as  will  not  take  the  oath  which  the  said  undertakers 
are  to  take  as  aforesaid.'1195 

Article  concerning  the  servitors. 

"  9.  They  [the  servitors]  shall  not  alien  their  portions,  or 
any  part  thereof,  to  the  mere  Irish,  or  to  any  such  person  or 
persons  as  will  not  take  the  like  oath,  as  the  said  undertakers 
were  to  take  as  aforesaid  ;  and  to  that  end  a  proviso  shall  be 
inserted  in  their  letters  patents."196 

194  Hibernica,  126.          19S  Idem,  127.          196  Idem,  128. 


SPOILING    THE    EGYPTIANS.  183 

to  the  true  state  of  the  case,  to  make  the  analogy 
more  complete,  suppose  a  wild,  incoherent  letter 
had,  in  1774,  been  dropped  in  the  court  of  St. 
James's,  accusing  George  Washington,  Thomas 
Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry,  and  Peyton  Randolph, 
of  a  conspiracy ;  suppose  that  such  threats  were 
held  out,  and  such  underhand  means  used,  as  to 
induce  them  to  have  recourse  to  "fugacy .-" 
suppose  that,  in  consequence  of  their  flight, 
George  III.  imitating  the  pious  example  of 
James  I.  had  seized  on  the  entire  province  of 
Virginia;  had  taken  the  inhabitants,  like  so  many 
merino  sheep,  and  planted,  in  the  Dismal  Swamp, 
North  Carolina,  those  whose  ancestors,  for  time 
immemorial,  had  had  lordly  palaces  in  the  great 
Limestone  valley:  and  suppose  further,  that 
those  "merino  sheep"  planted  in  the  Dismal 
Swamp,  were  condemned  to  vegetate  there,  and 
that  the  intruders  on  their  possessions  in  the 
valley  were  bound,  under  heavy  penalties,  never 
to  sell  to  them :  suppose,  too,  that  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  ill-fated  inhabitants,  who  could  not  be 
placed  advantageously  in  the  Dismal  Swamp, 
were  "  transported  into  such  other  parts,A  as,  by 

A  u  The  sword-men  are  to  be  transported  into  such  other 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  as,  by  reason  of  the  waste  land  therein^ 
are  fittest  to  receive  them  :  namely,  into  Connaught  and  some 
parts  of  Munster ;  where  they  are  to  be  dispersed,  and  not 
planted  together  in  one  place  :  and  such  sword-men  as  have 
not  followers,  nor  cattle  of  their  own,  to  be  disposed  of  in  his 
mnjestifs  service.^197 

197  Hibernica,  109. 


184  VIND1CLE    HIBERNICJE. 

reason  of  the  waste  land  therein,  were  fittest  to 
receive  them,  and  not  planted  together  in  one 
place."  What  judgment  would  he  form  of  such 
a  system  of  rapine  and  cruelty  ?  Would  he  not 
regard  it  as  an  odious  violation  of  the  most  holy 
and  sacred  rights  of  human  nature  ?  Such  a  judg- 
ment ought  he  to  form  of  the  "famous  northern 
plantation,  so  honourable  to  the  king."igs 

The  reader  is  shocked  with  this  detail.  He 
wishes  it  drawn  to  a  close.  He  supposes  he  has 
learned  all  its  odious  features,  and  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  add  a  shade  to  its  deformity.  But  he 
is  quite  mistaken  :  one  of  the  vilest  remains  to 
be  stated.  The  wretched  natives,  thus  plundered, 
thus  defrauded  of  their  patrimonial  inheritance, 
were  still  further  plundered,  and  defrauded  of  a 
large  portion  of  the  shabby  "  equivalent,"  as  it 
was  called.  In  some  cases,  they  did  not  receive 
above  a  half  or  a  third,  and  in  some  no  part 
whatever,  of  what  was  intended  for  them  by  the 

p 

upright  monarch  by  whom  this  spoliation  had 
been  perpetrated. 

"  The  commissioners  appointed  to  distribute  the  lands, 
scandalously  abused  their  trusts  :  and,  by  fraud  or  violence, 
deprived  the  natives  of  those  possessions  which  the  king  had 
reserved  for  them.  Some  indeed  were  allowed  to  enjoy  a  small 
pittance  of  such  reservation.  OTHERS  WERE  TOTALLY  EJECT- 
ED."199 

"  The  interested  assiduity  of  the  king's  creatures,  in  scru- 
tinizing' the  titles  to  those  lands  which  had  not  been  found  or 
acknowledged  to  belong  to  the  crown,  was,  if  possible,  STILL 

MORE    DETESTABLE."300 

198  Leland,  II.  504.          199  Idem,  546.         20°  Idem,  547. 


HISTORICAL    ACCURACY.  185 

u  There  are  not  wanting  proofs  of  the  most  iniquitous  prac- 
tices,  of  hardened  cruelty,  of  vile  perjury,  and  scandalous  su~ 
bornation,  employed  to  despoil  the  fair  and  unoffending  pro- 
prietor of  his  inheritance"™1 

"  In  several  ancient  grants,  there  had  been  a  reservation  of 
rents  to  the  crown.  During  long  intervals  of  commotion,  the 
king's  revenue  had  not  been,  nor  could  be,  regularly  collected; 
nor  had  such  rents  been  put  in  charge,  by  his  officers,  for  ages. 
Acquittances  were  now  demanded.  IT  WAS  IMPOSSIBLE  TO 
PRODUCE  THEM  :  and  the  failure  to  produce  them  was  pleaded 

as  SUFFICIENT  TO  OVERTHROW  THE  FAIREST  TITLES."202 

After  a  careful  perusal  of  the  foregoing  view 
of  the  indefensible  means  by  which  James  pos- 
sessed himself  of  so  fair  a  portion  of  Ireland,  and 
the  wanton  injustice  whereby  the  settlement  was 
regulated,  what  must  be  the  astonishment,  how 
great  the  indignation,  of  tke  candid  and  upright, 
to  read  the  deceptious  and  encomiastic  manner 
in  which  the  affair  is  blazoned  forth  by  all  the 
historians  who  have  treated  on  it !    Had  James 
civilized  a  nation  of  fierce  barbarians,  without 
offering  the  least  violence  to  their  persons,  the 
least  injustice  to  their  property, — had  he  framed 
for  them  a  code  of  laws  equal  to  what  might  be 
produced  by  the  united  wisdom  of  Moses,  Lycur- 
gus,  Solon,  Minos,  Numa  Pompilius,  and  Alfred, 
— had  he  settled  them  on  lands  of  his  own,  and 
bestowed  abundant  means  of  cultivating  them, 
he  could  not  be  entitled  to  higher  encomiums 
than  are  lavished  on  acts  which,  so  far  as  the 
rights  of  property  are  concerned,  have  far  more 

201  Lelund,  II.  549.  202  Idem,  548. 

24 


186  VIND1C1JE    IIIBEUN1CJE. 

of  the  character  of  Attila  or  Barbarossa,  than  of 
Alfred  or  William  Penn,  and  which  deserve  the 
severest  strains  of  indignant  reprobation.* 

"  To  consider  James  in  a  more  advantageous  light,"  says 
Hume,  "  we  must  take  a  view  of  him  as  the  legislator  of  Ire- 
land: and  most  of  the  institutions  which  he  had  formed  for 
civilizing  that  kingdom,  being  finished  about  this  period,  it 
may  not  here  be  improper  to  give  some  account  of  them.  He 
frequently  boasts  of  the  management  of  Ireland  as  his  master- 
piece ;  and  it  will  appear,  upon  inquiry,  that  his  vanity  in  this 
particular  was  not  altogether  unfounded™* 

"  After  abolishing  these  Irish  customs,  and  substituting 
English  law  in  their  place,  James,  having  taken  all  the  natives 
under  his  protection,  and  declared  them  free  citizens,  proceed- 
ed to  govern  them  by  a  regular  administration,  military  as 
well  as  civil."204 

Here  is  a  portrait,  as  like  the  real  state  of 
the  case,  as  the  reign  of  Nero  was  like  that  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  After  having  despoiled  an 

*  "  He  who  could  not  establish  the  right  of  his  possessions, 
clearly  and  indisputably,  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  crown,  and 
had  no  way  but  to  compound  on  the  best  terms  he  could  obtain^ 
and  to  get  a  new  grant  of  his  estate."205 

"  Where  no  grant  appeared,  or  no  descent  or  conveyance  in 
pursuance  of  it  could  be  proved,  the  land  -was  immediately  ad- 
judged to  belong  to  the  crown"3** 

"  The  lands  of  all  absentees,  and  of  all  that  had  been  expell- 
ed by  the  Irish,  were,  by  various  acts,  again  vested  in  the 
crown,  which  impeached  almost  every  grant  of  land  antecedent 
to  that  period.  Nor  did  later  grants  afford  a  full  security.  If 
any  former  grant  subsisted  at  the  time  when  they  were  made  ; 
if  the  patents  passed  in  Ireland  were  not  exactly  agreeable  to 
the  grant ;  if  both  did  not  accurately  correspond  with  the  ori- 

203  Hume,  III.  306.  *"  Idem,  307. 

205  Leland,  II.  547.  *»  Ibid. 


HISTORICAL  ACCURACY.         187 

entire  sixth  part  of  the  nation  of  their  property, 
— after  having  dispersed  them  here  and  there,  as 
suited  his  purpose, — after  having  transported  a 
large  portion  of  them  to  the  wild  wastes  of  Con- 
naught  and  Munster, — after  having  impressed 
into  his  armies  such  of  them  as  "  had  not  cattle 
or  followers  of  their  own,"  we  are  mocked  with 
the  absurd  falsehood,  that  "  he  took  them  under 
his  protection ;"  just  such  "  protection"  as  the 
lawless  pirate  extends  to  the  peaceful  mariners 
on  board  an  unarmed  merchant  vessel. 

Leland,  of  whom  we  have  so  frequently  had 
occasion  to  make  honourable  mention,  runs  the 
same  race  of  candour,  and  arrives  at  the  same 
goal  of  truth,  as  Hume.  He  bestows  not  one 
word  on  the  turpitude  of  plundering,  probably, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people  of  their 
patrimony,  for  the  crimes  of  two  great  men,  ne- 
ver proved,  never  attempted  to  be  proved,  and 
resting  wholly  on  a  ridiculous,  absurd,  and  ano- 
nymous letter,  or  a  tale  equally  absurd,  which  is 
incompatible  with  the  story  of  the  letter ;  which 

ginal  warrant  transmitted  from  England;  if  any  defect  appear- 
ed in  expressing  the  tenure,  any  mistake  in  point  of  form,  any 
advantage  taken  from  general  savings  or  clauses  in  the  patents, 
or  any  exceptions  to  be  made  in  larv,  which  is  sufficiently 
fruitful  in  affording  them,  there  was  an  end  of  the  grant,  and 
of  the  estate  which  it  conveyed.  Thus  was  EVERY  MAN'S 

ENJOYMENT  OF  HIS  POSSESSIONS  PRECARIOUS  AND  DISPUTA- 
BLE, at  a  time  when  commissions  were  awarded  to  inquire  by 
what  title  he  enjoyed  it."207 

207  Leland,  II.  548. 


188  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

crimes,  if  proved,  ought  not,  I  beg  leave  to  re- 
peat, to  involve  the  innocent  people,  who  were 
offered  up  on  the  altars  of  rapine. 

"  James,"  says  Leland,  "  who  affected  to  derive  his  glory 
from  the  arts  of  peace,  resolved  to  dispose  of  those  lands  in 
such  manner  as  might  introduce  all  the  happy  consequences  of 
peace  and  cultivation.  The  experience  of  ages  bears  the  most 
honourable  testimony  to  the  design :  and  Ireland  must  acknow- 
ledge, that  here  were  the  first  foundations  laid  of  its  affluence 
and  security."208 

"  Such  was  the  general  scheme  of  this  famous  northern  plan- 
tation, so  honourable  to  the  king,  and  of  such  consequence  to 
the  kingdom  of  Ireland."809 

"  The  passion  for  plantation,  which  James  indulged,  -was 
actuated  by  the  fairest  and  most  captivating  motives.  He  con- 
sidered himself  as  the  destined  reformer  and  civilizer  of  a 
rude  people ;  and  was  impatient  of  the  glory  of  teaching  a 
whole  nation  the  valuable  arts  of  life ;  of  improving  their 
lands,  extending  their  commerce,  and  refining  their  man- 
ners."210 

The  cravings  of  the  passion  for  spoliation  and 
plantation,  with  which  James  was  devoured,  when 
he  had  exhausted  all  the  pretences  of  conspiracy, 
were  by  no  means  lulled  to  rest.  He  broke  new 
ground ;  and  availed  himself  of  claims  arising 
from  the  conquest  of  Henry  II.  and  of  concessions 
made  by  that  monarch,  to  despoil  those  whose 
ancestors  had  been  in  undisturbed  possession  for 
centuries.  To  this  system  of  rapine  the  polished 
Leland  devotes  eleven  lines,  without  one  decisive 
word  of  censure  or  disapprobation.  It  is  true> 
he  hints  that  all  is  not  exactly  as  it  should  be. 

308  Leland,  II.  545.          209  Idem,  512.         21°  Idem,  545. 


UNDISGUISED    RAPINE.  189 

"•  In  the  pursuit  of  this  favourite  object,  he  had  sometimes 
recourse  to  claims,  which  the  old  natives  deemed  unjust. 
The  seizure  of  those  lands,  whose  possessors  had  medi- 
tated  rebellion,  and  fled  from  the  sentence  of  the  law,  produced 
little  clamour  or  murmuring.  But  when  he  recurred  to 
the  concessions  made  by  Henry  II.  to  invalidate  TITLES 
DERIVED  FROM  A  POSSESSION  OF  SOME  CEN- 
TURIES, the  apparent  severity  had  its  full  effect  on  those 
who  were  not  acquainted  with  the  refinements  of  law,  and  not 
prepossessed  in  favour  of  such  refinements,  when  employed  to 
divest  them  of  their  ancient  property."811 

To  this  sentence,  the  reader's  attention  is  spe- 
cially invited.  When  Leland  informs  us,  that 
the  natives  deemed  the  king's  claims  unjust,  it  is 
fair  to  infer,  that  he  himself  believed  them  just, 
or  at  least  that  there  was  reason  to  doubt  on  the 
subject.  But  what  was  the  nature  of  those  claims  ? 
They  are  stated  by  Leland  himself,  at  the  close 
of  the  sentence.  They  were  grounded  on  con- 
cessions four  hundred  years  old.  Yet  of  those 
claims,  which,  if  universally  admitted,  would  for- 
feit nearly  the  whole  globe,  this  candid  and  im- 
partial writer  simply  informs  his  abused  reader, 
that  "the  old  natives"  [were  so  unreasonable,  that 
they]  " deemed  them  unjust"  The  interpolated 
parenthesis  in  this  sentence  is,  I  think,  by  no 
means  forced  or  strained.  It  is  the  natural  form 
in  which  the  phraseology  presents  itself  to  the 
mind's  eye. 

The  term  "  apparent  severity"  would  be  ap- 
propriately applied  to  the  rigorous  exaction  of  a 

211  Leland,  II.  545. 


190  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

fine  fairly  incurred,  to  the  unrelenting  infliction 
of  the  fuU  measure  of  punishment  for  crimes 
committed,  or  to  the  confiscation  of  property  duly 
forfeited ;  but  it  is  a  miserable  departure  from 
historical  justice,  to  apply  it,  as  in  the  present  in- 
stance, to  an  act  of  absolute  regal  robbery  ;  for 
the  dispossession  of  persons  whose  families  had 
undisputed  possession  for  centuries,  on  such 
grounds  as  Leland  states,  is  undoubted  robbery. 
AVhat  would  be  said  of  the  historian  who  should 
descant  on  the  "  apparent  severity"  of  Black- 
beard  or  Morgan,  the  pirates,  in  their  attacks  on 
the  defenceless  inhabitants  of  Lima  or  Cuzco,  or 
the  "  apparent  severity"  of  William  III.  in  the 
massacre  of  Glenco,  or  the  persecution  and  ruin 
of  the  ill-fated  Scotch  colony  at  Darien  ? 

Before  the  poor  plundered  people  were  ex- 
pelled from  their  homes  and  farms,  and  turned 
adrift  on  the  world,  they  made  a  legal  effort  to 
prove  the  wickedness  and  injustice  of  the  pro- 
cedure ;  "  to  maintain,"  in  the  language  of  Sir 
John  Davies,  "  that  they  had  estates  of  inheri- 
tance in  their  possessions,  which  their  chief  could 
not  forfeit."  Sir  John,  the  attorney-general, 
pleaded  against  their  claims ;  and  has  fortunately 
left  on  record  his  speech  on  the  subject,*  which 

A  u  The  inhabitants  of  this  country  do  border  upon  the  Eng- 
lish Pale,  where  they  have  many  acquaintances  and  alliances ; 
by  means  whereof  they  have  learned  to  talk  of  a  freehold  and 
estates  of  inheritance,  which  the  poor  natives  of  Fermanagh 
and  Tyrconnel  could  not  speak  of;  although  these  men  had  no 


LEGAL    CHICANE.  191 

exhibits  a  most  extraordinary  specimen  of  chi- 
cane and  quibble,  that  would  have  better  become 

other  nor  better  estate  than  they ;  that  is,  only  a  scambling 
and  transitory  possession,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  chief  of  every 
sept. 

"  When  the  proclamation  was  published  touching  their  re- 
moval (which  was  done  in  the  public  Sessions-House,  the  lord 
deputy  and  commissioners  being  present)  a  lawyer  of  the  Pale, 
retained  by  them,  did  endeavour  to  maintain  that  they  had 
estates  of  inheritance  in  their  possessions,  which  their  chief 
lords  could  not  forfeit ;  and  therefore,  in  their  name,  desired 
two  things  :  first,  that  they  might  be  admitted  to  traverse  the 
offices  which  had  been  found  of  those  lands ;  secondly,  that 
they  might  have  the  benefit  of  a  proclamation  made  about  five 
years  since,  whereby  the  persons,  lands,  and  goods,  of  all  his 
majesty's  subjects,  were  taken  into  his  royal  protection. 

"  To  this  the  king's  attorney,  being  commanded  by  the 
lord  deputy,  made  answer :  That  he  was  glad  that  this  occa- 
sion was  offered,  of  declaring  and  setting  forth  his  majesty's 
just  title,  as  well  for  his  majesty's  honour  (who,  BEING  THE 

MOST  JUST  PRINCE  LIVING,  WOULD  NOT  DISPOSSESS  THE 
MEANEST  OF  HIS  SUBJECTS  WRONGFULLY,  TO  GAIN  MANY 

SUCH  KINGDOMS)  as  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  natives  them- 
selves, and  of  all  the  world;  for  his  majesty's  right,  it  shall 
appear,  said  he,  that  his  majesty  may  and  ought  to  dispose  of 
these  lands,  in  such  manner  as  he  hath  done,  and  is  about  to 
do,  in  law,  in  conscience,  and  in  honour. 

"  In  law ;  whether  the  case  be  to  be  ruled  by  our  law  of 
England,  which  is  in  force,  or  by  their  own  Brehon  law,  which 
is  abolished,  and  adjudged  no  law,  but  a  lewd  custom. 

"  It  is  our  rule  in  our  law,  that  the  king  is  lord  paramount 
of  all  the  land  in  the  kingdom,  and  that  all  his  subjects  hold 
their  possessions  of  him,  mediate  or.  immediate. 

"  It  is  another  rule  of  our  law,  that  where  the  tenant's  estate 
doth  fail  and  determine,  the  lord,  of  whom  the  land  is  holden, 
may  enter  and  dispose  thereof  at  his  pleasure. 

u  Then  those  lands  in  the  county  of  Cavan  which  was 
O'Rilie's  country,  are  all  holden  of  the  king :  and  because  the 


192  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

an  Old  Bailey  pettifogging  attorney,  than  such  a 
high  and  responsible  officer  of  the  crown.  He 

captainship  or  chiefrey  of  CVRilie  is  abolished  by  act  of  Par- 
liament, by  stat.  2.  of  Elizabeth ;  and  also  because  two  of  the 
chief  lords  elected  by  the  country  have  been  lately  slain  in 
rebellion,  (which  is  an  attainder  in  law)  these  lands  are  holden 
immediately  of  his  majesty. 

"  If  then  the  king's  majesty  be  immediate  chief  lord  of 
these  lands,  let  us  see  what  estates  the  tenants  or  possessors 
have,  by  the  rules  of  the  common  law  of  England. 

"  Either  they  have  an  estate  of  inheritance  or  a  lesser 
estate  :  a  lesser  estate  they  do  not  claim  ;  or  if  they  did,  they 
ought  to  show  the  creation  thereof,  which  they  cannot  do. 

"  If  they  have  an  estate  of  inheritance,  their  lands  ought  to 
descend  to  a  certain  heir ;  but  neither  their  chiefries  nor  their 
tenancies  ever  descend  to  a  certain  heir ;  therefore  they  have 
no  estate  of  inheritance. 

. "  Their  chiefries  were  ever  carried  in  a  course  of  tannistry, 
to  the  eldest  and  strongest  of  the  sept,  who  held  the  same 
during  life,  if  he  were  not  ejected  by  a  stronger. 

"  This  estate  of  the  chieftain  or  tannist  hath  been  lately  ad- 
judged no  estate  in  law,  but  only  a  transitory  and  scambling 
possession. 

"  Their  inferior  tenancies  did  run  in  another  course,  like  the 
old  gavelkind  in  Wales,  where  the  bastards  had  their  por- 
tions, as  well  as  the  legitimate ;  which  portion  they  held  not 
in  perpetuity,  but  the  chief  of  the  sept  did  once  in  two  or 
three  years  shuffle  and  change  their  possessions,  by  new  par- 
titions and  divisions ;  which  made  their  estates  so  uncertain, 
as  that,  by  opinion  of  all  the  judges  in  this  kingdom,  this  pre- 
tended custom  of  gavelkind  is  adjudged  and  declared  void 
in  law. 

"And  as  these  men  had  no  certain  estates  of  inheritance, 
so  did  they  never  till  now  claim  any  such  estate,  nor  conceive 
that  their  lawful  heirs  should  inherit  the  land  which  they  pos- 
sessed ;  which  is  manifest  by  two  arguments. 

"  1.  They  never  esteemed  lawful  matrimony,  to  the  end  that 
they  might  have  lawful  heirs. 


LEGAL    CHICANE.  193 

sought  to   convince   them,  that    "his  majesty 
was  the  most  just  prince  living,  and  would  not 

"  2.  They  never  did  build  any  houses,  nor  plant  orchards  or 
gardens,  nor  take  any  care  of  their  posterities. 

"  If  these  men  had  no  estates  in  law,  either  in  their  mean 
chiefries  or  in  their  inferior  tenancies,  it  followeth,  that  if  fas 
majesty,  who  is  the  undoubted  lord  paramount,  do  seize  and. 
dispose  these  lands,  they  can  make  no  title  against  his  majesty 
or  his  patentees,  and  consequently  cannot  be  admitted  to  tra- 
verse any  office  of  those  lands ;  for  without  shewing  a  title, 
no  men  can  be  admitted  to  traverse  an  office. 

"  Thus  then  it  appears,  that  as  -well  by  the  Irish  custom  as 
the  law  of  England,  his  majesty  may,  at  his  pleasure,  seize 
those  lands,  and  dispose  thereof.  The  only  scruple  which 
remains,  consists  in  this  point :  whether  the  king  may,  in  con- 
science or  honour  remove  the  ancient  tenants,  and  bring  ia 
strangers  among  them. 

"  Truly  his  majesty  may  not  only  take  this  course  lawfully, 
but  is  bound  in  conscience  so  to  do. 

"  For,  being  the  undoubted  rightful  king  of  this  realm,  so 
as  the  people  and  land  are  committed  by  the  Divine  Majesty 
to  his  charge  and  government,  his  majesty  is  bound  in  con- 
science to  use  all  lawful  and  just  courses  to  reduce  his  people 
from  barbarism  to  civility :  the  neglect  whereof  heretofore 
hath  been  laid  as  an  imputation  upon  the  crown  of  England. 
Now  civility  cannot  possibly  be  planted  among  them"  [without 
plundering  them  of  their  estates]  "  but  by  this  mixed  plantation 
of  civil  men,  which  likewise  could  not  be  without  removal  and 
transplantation  of  some  of  the  natives,  and  settling  their  pos- 
sessions in  a  course  of  common  law ;  for  if  themselves  were 
suffered  to.  possess  the  whole  country,  as  their  septs  have  done 
for  many  hundreds  of  years  past,  they  would  never,  to  the 
end  of  the  world,  build  houses,  make  townships  or  villages,  or 
manure  or  improve  the  land  as  it  ought  to  be;  therefore  it  stands 
neither  with  Christian  policy  nor  conscience,  to  suffer  so  good 
and  fruitful  a  country  to  lie  waste  like  a  wilderness,  when  his 
majesty  may  lawfully"  [reduce  the  right  owners  to  beggary, 

25 


194  VINDZCLE    HIBERNICJE. 

dispossess  the  meanest  of  his  subjects  wrongfully, 
to  gain  many  such  kingdoms."    This  was  a  very 

and]  "  dispose  it  to  such  persons  as  will  make  a  civil  planta- 
tion thereupon. 

"  Again,  his  majesty  may  take  this  course  IN  CON- 
SCIENCE ;  because  it  tendeth  to  the  good  of  the  inhabitants 
many  ways ;  for  half  their  lands  doth  now  lie  waste ;  by  rea- 
son whereof  that  which  is  inhabited  is  not  improved  to  half 
the  value :  but  when  the  undertakers  are  planted  among  them, 
(there  being  place  and  scope  enough  both  for.  them  and  for  the 
natives,)"  [yet  a  large  portion  of  them  were  transported  to  the 
wild  wastes  in  Connaught  and  Munster,]  "  and  that  all  the 
land  shall  be  fully  stocked  and  manured,  Jive  hundred  acres 
will  be  of  better  value  than  Jive  thousand  are  now.  Besides, 
where  before  their  estates  were  altogether  uncertain  and  tran- 
sitory, so  as  their  heirs  did  never  inherit,  they  shall  now  have 
certain  estates  of  inheritance,  the  portion  allotted  unto  them, 
which  they  and  their  children  after  them,  shall  enjoy  with 
security. 

"  Lastly,  this  transplantation  of  the  natives  is  made  by  his 
majesty,  rather  like  a  father  than  like  a  lord  or  monarch.  The. 
Romans  transplanted  whole  nations  out  of  Germany  into 
France ;  the  Spaniards  lately  removed  all  the  Moors  out  of 
Grenada  into  Barbary,  without  providing  them  any  new  seats 
there  :  -when  the  English  Pale  was  first  planted,  all  the  natives 
were  clearly  expelled,  so  as  not  one  Irish  family  had  so  much- 
as  an  acre  of  freehold,  in  all  the  Jive  counties  of  the  Pale:  and 
now,  within  these  four  years  past,  the  Graemes  were  removed 
from  the  borders  of  Scotland  to  this  kingdom,  and  had  not  one 
foot  of  land  allotted  to  them  here  :  but  these  natives  of  Cavan 
have  competent  portions  of  land  assigned  to  them,  many  of 
them  in  the  same  barony  where  they  dwelt  before ;  and  such 
as  are  removed  are  planted  in  the  same  county,  so  as  his  ma- 
jesty doth  in  this  imitate  the  skilful  husbandman,  who  doth 
remove  his  fruit  trees,  not  with  a  purpose  to  extirpate  and  de- 
stroy them,  but  that  they  may  bring  better  and  sweeter  fruit 
after  the  transplantation."*111 

212  Davies,  276. 


LEGAL   CHICANE. 

handsome  and  suitable  exordium  to  a  discourse 
intended  to  justify  the  dispossession  of  probably 
an  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  subjects,  great  and 
mean  together.  As  a  proper  corollary  to  this, 
he  declared,  that  "  his  majesty  not  only  might, 
but  absolutely  ought  to  dispose  of  the  lands  as 
he  had  done,  in  law,  in  conscience,  and  in  ho- 
nour," although  a  gross  violation  of  law,  con- 
science, and  honour.  He  gravely  urged,  that 
they  had  . "  no  certain  estates  of  inheritance,"  t 
which,  he  says,  "  is  manifest  by  two  arguments," 
the  cogency  of  which  cannot  fail  to  strike  the 
reader  with  some  force.  The  first  is, 

That  "  they  never  esteemed  lawful  matrimony, 
to  the  end  they  might  have  lawful  heirs ;" 

And  the  second, 

That  "  they  never  did  build  any  house*,  nor 
plant  orchards  or  gardens,  nor  tote  any  care  of 
their  posterities" 

Who  can  read  such  n^erable  chicanery,  with- 
out ineffable  disgr«at  at  the  impudence,  and  ab- 
horrence of  the  fraud  and  imposture,  that  at- 
tempted to  justify  the  spoliation  of  possessions, 
many  of  which  had  descended  from  father  to  son 
for  perhaps  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  years, 
because  the  owners  did  not  "  esteem  lawful  ma- 
trimony" nor  "plant  orchards  or  gardens,  nor 
build  any  houses?"  and  this  covered  over  with  the 
holy  mantle  of  "  law,  conscience,  and  Jionour?" 

Not  satisfied  with  this  reasoning,  he  undertook 
to  prove,  that  the  plantation  was  absolutely 


196  V1NDICLK    HIBERNICJE. 

for  the  good  of  the  natives;  for  that  by  this 
Agrarian  hocus  pocus,  five  hundred  acres  thence- 
forward would  produce  more  than  five  thousand 
had  previously  done.  It  followed,  of  course,  that 
the  man  who  was  plundered  of  four  thousand 
five  hundred  acres  out  of  five  thousand,  was 
actually,  according  to  this  logic,  a  gainer  by  the 
robbery  ! 

He  closes  his  discourse  by  asserting,  that  the 
transplantation  of  the  natives  was  made  "  more 
like  a  father,  than  like  a  lord  or  monarch."  In 
proof  of  this  position,  he  displays  great  learning 
on  the  transplantation  of  nations  by  the  Romans, 
the  Spaniards,  and  the  English  themselves,  in 
former  times ;  and  states,  that  when  the  English 
Pale  was  first  planted,  the  natives  were  so  wholly 
expelie^  that  "  not  one  Irish  family  had  so  much 
as  an  acre  of  freehold  in  all  the  Jive  counties." 
This  argument  ou^t  to  have  removed  all  doubts 
from  the  minds  of  the  i^h ;  as  it  proved  that  the 
English  had,  from  time  immemorial,  a  prescrip- 
tive right  to  seize  then-  lands,  and  not  leave  them 
so  much  as  "  one.  acre  of  freehold,"  if  they  judged 
proper  ;  and,  of  course,  that  James  I.  did  prove 
himself  "  a  father,"  when  he  refrained  from  avail- 
ing himself  of  his  rights  to  their  full  extent. 

The  whole  of  the  argument,  if  such  miserable 
quibble*}  and  trash  can  be  called  argument,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  preceding  note,  which  is  par- 
ticularly recommended  to  the  attention  of  the 
reader.  I  have  given  it  in  extenso,  that  he  may 


IRRESISTIBLE    LOGIC.  197 

have  a  fair  sample  of  the  "  law,  conscience,  and 
honour,"  displayed  towards  the  "savage  Irish," 
during  the  millenium  of  forty  years,  when,  ac- 
cording to  Clarendon,  "whatsoever  their  land, 
labour,  or  industry  produced,  was  their  own, 
being  free  from  fear  of  having  it  taken  from  them 
by  the  king,  on  any  pretence  whatsoever." 

It  is  extraordinary  that  the  Boeotian  dulness  of 
the  Irish  rendered  them  incapable  of  compre- 
hending the  cogency  of  Sir  John  Davies's  reason- 
ing: it  was  too  elegant  and  refined  for  their 
uncultivated  minds.  The  poor  idiots  could  not 
conceive  why  they  should  be  stripped  of  their 
estates,  because  an  anonymous  and  nonsensical 
letter  had  been  dropped  in  the  Privy  Council 
Chamber. 

The  lord  deputy,  however,  had  stronger  argu- 
ment than  Sir  John,  to  which  they  were  forced 
to  submit : 

"  The  natives  seemed  not  unsatisfied  in  reason,  though  they 
remained  in  their  passions  discontented,  being  much,  grieved 
to  leave  their  possessions  to  strangers,  which  they  had  so  long 
after  their  manner  enjoyed ;  howbeit,  MY  LORD  DEPUTY  DID 

SO  MIX  THREATS  WITH  ENTREATY,  PRECIBUSOJJE  MINAS  RE- 

GALITER  ADDIT,  as  they  promised  to  give  way  to  the  under- 
takers, if  the  sheriff,  by  warrant  of  the  commissioners,  did  put 
them  in  possession."213 

He  judiciously  "  mixed  threats  with  entreaties, 
precibusque  minas  regaliter  addit"  that  is,  in  the 
true  polite  Tyburn  style,  persuasion  on  the 

213  Davies,  284. 


198  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

tongue,  and  the  pistol  in  hand.  Whatever  diffi- 
culty there  might  be  in  yielding  to  the  one,  was 
removed  by  the  application  of  the  other.  There 
is  no  mode  of  conviction  so  powerful.  Make  a 
low  bow,  with  entreaties,  and  add  threats,  pro- 
perly supported,  in  case  of  refusal.  He  must  have 
been  a  most  stubborn  disputant,  that  could  resist 
the  conviction  arising  from  the  overwhelming 
arguments  of  the  deputy,  with  an  army  at  his 
command,  the  power  of  proclaiming  martial  law 
at  pleasure,  and  the  executioner  ready  at  hand, 
to  support  his  reasoning  with  a  rope.  Neither 
Demosthenes,  Cicero,  Burke,  Pitt,  nor  Fox,  could 
withstand  such  logic. 

It  were  endless  to  recapitulate  the  odious 
features  of  this  "  magnificent  project"  With  one 
more,  I  shall  close  the  catalogue  of  oppression. 

The  adjustment  of  the  rent,  payable  by  the 
different  descriptions  of  persons  to  whom  these 
lands  were  allotted,  affords  a  striking  instance 
of  gross  partiality  and  injustice.  The  undertakers, 
who  had  the  choicest  portions  of  the  soil,  were 
to  pay  to  the  crown  a  rent  of  six  shillings  and 
eight-pence,  for  every  sixty  acres ;  the  servitors, 
ten  shillings ;  and  the  natives,  who  were  plun- 
dered of  their  paternal  estates,  and  reduced  from 
the  enviable  condition  of  independent  freeholders 
to  that  of  tenants,  were  to  pay  thirteen  shillings 
and  four-pence.314  That  is  to  say,  the  despoiled 

314  Hibernica,  125,  128,  129. 


EXTREME    PARTIALITY.  199 

owners  of  the  soil  were  to  pay  exactly  twice  as 
much  rent  for  inferior  lands,  as  the  despoilers 
paid  for  the  superior :  and,  to  add  to  the  iniquity, 
the  undertakers  and  servitors  were  to  pay  no 
rent  till  the  third  year,  being  rent-free  for  two 
years ;  whereas  the  natives  were  to  pay  the 
second  year,  being  rent-free  only  one  year. 


200  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJK. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Egyptians  spoiled  once  more.  Regal  rapine, 
in  the  King's  and  Queen's  counties,  Leitrim, 
Longford,  and  Westmeath.  Three  hundred  and 
eighty-Jive  thousand  acres  forfeited,  for  the 
charitable  purpose  of  civilizing  the  natives. 

JAMES'S  predominating  passion  for  plunder 
and  plantation  had  been  tolerably  satisfied  with 
the  spoliation  of  Ulster,  where,  by  a  princely 
exercise  of  law,  honour,  and  conscience,  he  had 
involved  in  ruin  the  once  proud  owners  of 
princely  estates,  raised  to  rank  and  fortune  many 
of  the  lowest  orders  of  society,  and,  in  a  word, 
changed  the  whole  face  of  the  country.  He  for 
a  while  rested  from  his  labours  :  but  the  devour- 
ing lust  of  plunder  and  plantation  returned ;  and, 
being  too  imperiously  craving  to  be  resisted,  he 
resolved  to  gratify  it.  Encouraged  by  the  facility 
with  which  he  had  effected  his  spoliations  in 
Ulster,  he  displayed  himself,  on  this  occasion,  in 
the  bold  character  of  a  public  depredator,  scorn- 
ing disguise  or  artifice.  It  was  thought  unne- 
cessary to  hire  letter-droppers,  or  false  witnesses, 
to  swear  to  plots  or  conspiracies.  Without  any 
of  the  tricks  played  off  by  his  predecessors,  or 


SPOLIATION  .  ON  A  LARGE  SCALE.     201 

by  himself,  in  the  province  of  Ulster,  he  plun- 
dered his  subjects,  in  King's  and  Queen's  coun- 
ties, Leitrim,  Longford,  and  Westmeath,  of 
estates  to  the  amount  of  three  hundred  and 
eighty-five  thousand  acres.  Thus  this  vain,  sot- 
tish, contemptible,  and  rapacious  monarch,  in  a 
time  of  profound  peace,  at  two  successive  opera- 
tions, seized  about  a  twentieth  pail  of  the  whole 
island;  five  hundred  thousand  acres  in  Ulster, 
and  three  hundred  and  eighty-five  thousand  in 
Leinster :  and  it  is  more  than  probable,  that,  had 
his  inglorious  career  continued  as  long  as  that  of 
some  of  his  successors,  he  would  have  seized 
every  acre  of  the  island,  belonging  to  the  Ro- 
man Catholics;  for,  after  his  depredations  in 
Leinster  were  completed,  he  was  seriously  occu- 
pied in  preparations  for  the  plantation  of  Con- 
naught,*  when  death  humanely  rescued  his  Irish 
subjects  from  the  merciless  gripe  of  the  canting, 
hypocritical  oppressor,  who  had,  throughout  his 
reign,  plundered  them  as  "  a  father,  not  as  a 
monarch"  and,  according  to  the  sovereign  dic- 
tates of  " law,  honour,  and  conscience"  reduced 
them  to  beggary  here,  for  "  the  good  of  their 
souls  hereafter." 

*  "  The  project  recommended  to  the  king  was  nothing  less 
than  that  of  establishing  an  extensive  plantation  in  Connaught, 
SIMILAR  TO  THAT  OF  ULSTER;  and,  in  his  rage  for  reforma- 
tion, IT  WAS  MOST  FAVOURA-BLY  RECEIVED."215 

215  Leland,  II.  558. 
26 


202  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

But,  as  it  was  only  "  spoiling  the  Egyptians,"  to 
borrow  a  phrase  from  Rob  Roy,  it  is  passed  over 
by  Leland,  Carte,  and  Hume,  not  merely  as  an 
innocent,  but  as  a  necessary  measure  ;  nay,  it 
appears  from  their  statements  as  entitled  to 
applause. 

Leland  informs  us,  that  those  counties,  "  by 
their  situation  and  circumstances,  required  parti- 
cular regulation."  And  what  was  the  "particular 
regulation"  which  they  required  ?  It  was  simply, 
that  all  the  rights  of  property,  held  sacred  among 
the  most  barbarous  nations,  the  Moors  and  Al- 
gerines,  should  be  basely  invaded  by  a  wretched 
monarch,  who,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  has  been 
fraudulently  ranked  among  the  civilizers  and 
benefactors  of  mankind : 

"  Naturally  strong,  and  difficult  of  access,  they  afforded,  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  island,  a  safe  retreat  and  shelter  to  the 
old  inhabitants,  who  were  tenacious  of  their  barbarous  cus- 
toms, nestling  in  their  filthy  cottages  in  winter,  in  summer 
wandering  with  their  cattle  over  the  mountains.  Through 
these  districts,  the  Irish  insurgents  had  usually  passed  from 
Connaught  or  Ulster,  to  annoy  the  Pale.  They  had  served 
for  a  passage  to  Tyrone  and  his  forces  into  Munster,  and  a 
retreat  in  his  inglorious  flight  from  Kinsale.  In  time  of  peace, 
they  were  the  safe  receptacles  of  robbers,  where  they  defied 
the  ministers  of  justice  ;  and,  surrounded  with  woods,  bogs, 
and  mountains,  lived  in  a  sort  of  independence,  and  contemp- 
tuous resistance  to  the  law.  To  reduce  these  savages  to  order 
and  subjection"  [that  is,  reader,  those  savages,  than  whom, 
according  to  Sir  John  Davies  and  Edward  Coke,  NO  PEOPLE 
UNDER  THE  SUN  LOVED  JUSTICE  BETTER;  and  who  were 

MORE  FEARFUL  TO  OFFEND  THE    LAW    THAN    THE    ENGLISH] 

"  inquisitions  were  held  to  examine  the  king's  title  to  the  whole 


MISERABLE    SOPHISTRY.  203 

or  any  part  of  their  lands.  It  was  found,  that  some  of  them 
had  been  anciently  possessed  by  English  settlers,  who,  in  the 
disorders  of  the  kingdom,  had  been  expelled  by  the  old  na- 
tives, and  which  were  therefore  vested  in  the  crown,  as  the 
lands  of  absentees  ;  others  appeared  to  have  been  forfeited  by 
rebellion:  So  that  James  deemed  himself  entitled  to  make  a 
distribution  of  THREE  HUNDRED  AND  EIGHTY- 
FIVE  THOUSAND  ACRES  in  these  counties,  to  such 
proprietors,  and  in  such  proportions,  as  might  promote  the 
general  welfare  and  security,  the  extension  of  commerce,  and 
the  civility  of  the  natives.  The  large  portions  re-granted  to 
the  ancient  proprietors,  on  permanent  tenures,  reconciled  many 
to  this  new  scheme  of  plantation."216 

Language  hardly  affords  terms  of  contempt  and 
disgust,  adequate  to  brand  the  writer,  who  can 
cant  and  whine,  in  extenuation  of  such  atrocious 
spoliation.  If  the  natives  "  nestled  in  filthy  cot- 
tages," it  proceeded  from  the  oppression  of  the 
wretched  government  under  which  they  groaned, 
and  which,  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  hardly  ever 
adopted  a  single  measure  dictated  by  sound  or 
magnanimous  policy,  or  calculated  to  claim  the 
respect  or  gratitude  of  its  Irish  subjects. 

In  the  same  hacknied  strain,  Carte  cants  on 
the  subject  of  this  immense  depredation : 

"  The  peace  of  the  kingdom  was  very  precarious,  whilst 
those  countries  remained  in  a  sort  of  independence  on  the 
state,  and  its  inhabitants  lived  in  a  contempt  of  its  laws.  The 
king  saw  it  necessary  to  reduce  them  into  the  same  order  and 
subjection'''  [that  is,  the  same  state  of  beggary  and  ruin  in 
which  he  had  involved  the  people  of  the  six  counties  in  Ul- 
ster] "  as  the  rest  of  the  kingdom  :  and  therefore,  by  a  special 
commission,  in  1614,  had  empowered  the  lord  deputy  Chiches- 

216  Leland,  II.  539. 


204  VINDICDE    HIBERNICJE. 

ter  and  others  to  take  a  view  of  the  countries,"  [and  so  ascer- 
tain how  much  he  might  seize]  "  and  inquire  into  the  title 
which  the  crown  had  to  them,  or  any  part  thereof;  the  estate, 
number,  and  condition  of  the  inhabitants  ;  the  chiefries,  claims, 
customs,  and  rents  of  the  present  lords ;  and  the  best  way  of 
reducing  and  settling  them."817  *>» 

I  have  given  these  statements  at  length,  that 
the  reader  may  have  a  full  view  of  the  grounds 
on  which  the  depredation  took  place,  and  may 
decide  on  its  propriety  or  justice,  and  on  the 
merits  of  the  writers  from  whom  the  accounts 
are  taken.  The  flimsy  pretext,  that  "  the  peace 
of  the  country  was  precarious,"  and  that  "  these 
counties  were  receptacles  of  robbers,"  will  not 
stand  a  moment's  examination.  Fraud  and  ra- 
pine never  wanted  a  pretext  of  extenuation  or 
justification.  The  fable  of  the  wolf  and  the 
lamb  affords  a  proper  type  of  this  course  of 
proceeding. 

If  those  counties  were  receptacles  of  robbers, 
the  proper  corrective  was  to  open  assizes,  and  ) 
employ  courts,  sheriffs,  and  executioners  ;  not  to 
rob  the  people  of  their  lands,  and  turn  them  out 
on  the  highway,  to  retaliate  on  the  unwary 
passenger  the  depredations  they  suffered  from 
those  whose  office  imposed  on  them  the  duty  of 
protection. 

The  admission  of  such  a  paltry  defence  of  so 
base  a  system  of  rapine  and  plunder,  reflects 
indelible  disgrace  on  Leland  and  Carte,  and  ought 

317  Carte,  I.  23. 


SPOLIATION.  205 

to  consign  their  histories  to  utter  oblivion.  Had 
they  the  slightest  knowledge  of  their  duty,  or  did 
they  pay  attention  to  its  discharge,  they  would 
have  marked  the  act  with  the  brand  of  infamy 
and  reprobation,  'which  it  had  so  richly  earned. 
There  was  not  a  subject  in  his  dominions,  whose 
estate  the  rapacious  monarch  might  not  have  ^ 
seized,  under  some  pretence  or  other,  as  valid  ; 
nor,  in  fact,  is  there  an  estate  under  the  star- 
spangled  canopy  of  heaven,  which  might  not  be 
seized  with  equal  justice,  and  equal  regard  to 
"  law,  honour,  and  conscience.11 

In  the  "  famous  northern  plantation,  so  honour- 
able to  king  James,"  according  to  the  very  accu- 
rate Leland,  we  have  seen  that  the  natives  were 
despoiled  of  the  paltry  modicum  of  the  soil, 
which  the  rapacity  of  the  monarch  had  allotted 
them,  to  support  a  miserable  existence.  As 
might  be  expected,  the  Leinster  adventurers,  in 
order  to  keep  their  Ulster  friends  in  countenance^ 
followed  their  captivating  example,  and  defrauded 
the  natives  to  precisely  the  same  extent.  This 
verifies  the  old  Latin  adage, 

"  Ad  regis  exemplum  totus  componitur  orbis." 

"  In  the  county  of  Longford,  the  natives  in  general  had 
scarce  a  third  part  of  their  former  possessions,  either  in  number 
of  acres  or  in  value  of  profitable  ground,  allotted  them.  The 
arts  of  admeasurement  were  well  understood  in  those  days  ; 
and,  as  the  king  had  directed  a  certain  quantity  of  unprofitable 
ground,  bog,  wood,  and  mountain,  to  be  thrown  into  the  seve- 
ral proportions  of  profitable  land  allotted  to  British  and  natives, 


206  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJL. 

a  great  latitude  of  judgment  was  left  to  the  commissioners, 
which  some  of  them  knnu  how  to  make  use  of  for  their  ad- 
vantage. 

"  Hence  several  persons  "were  turned  out  of  large  estates  of 
profitable  land,  and  had  only  a  small  pittance,  less  than  a  fourth 
part,  assigned  them  for  it,  in  barren  ground."218 

"  In  the  small  county  of  Longford,  we  find  that  twenty-jive 
of  one  sept  ivere  all  deprived  of  their  estates,  without  the  least 
compensation,  or  any  means  of  subsistence  allotted  them"219 

We  may  form  a  tolerably  accurate  idea  of  the 
frightful  extent  to  which  the  spirit  of  rapine  was 
earned,  from  the  specimen  here  exhibited.  What 
a  hideous  specimen  !  Proprietors  expelled  from 
their  large  paternal  estates,  in  rich  vallies  and 
"  profitable  lands,"  and  receiving  "  a  fourth  part 
of  the  amount  in  barren  ground."  Let  us  bring 
the  matter  home  to  an  American  reader.  Sup- 
pose a  descendant  of  William  Penn,  settled  on 
the  rich  lands  in  Lancaster,  Chester,  or  Delaware 
counties,  and  owning  one  thousand  acres,  worth 
one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  per  acre,  expelled 
from  thence,  because  he  "  built  no  houses,  nor 
planted  orchards  or  gardens  "  banished  to  some 
of  the  barren  lands  of  Northumberland  or  Ly- 
coming,  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  hardly 
worth  one  dollar  per  acre ;  thus  receiving,  in 
lord  Clarendon's  millenium,  "  that  blessed  condi- 
tion of  peace  and  security,"  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  as  an  equivalent  for  an  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand.  This  is  a  very  fair  view  of  the 
equitable  doctrine  of  equivalents,  as  studied  and 

218  Carte,  I.  23.  219  Leland,  II.  546. 


CLARENDON'S  VERACITY  TESTED.   207 

' 

carried  into  practice  by  those  upright  agents  of 
the  pious  James,  who,  to  use  the  words  of  Leland, 
were  employed  "  to  reduce  those  savages  to  order 
and  subjection." 

But  the  case  of  those  wretched  people,  placed 
on  the  "  barren  lands,"  and  with  an  equivalent  of 
one-fourth  of  the  number  of  acres  whereof  they 
were  plundered,  was  not,  it  appears,  the  most 
grievous  that  occurred.  We  see,  that  of  one 
single  sept,  or  family,  twenty-five  were  turned 
adrift,  "  without  the  least  compensation,  or  any 
means  of  subsistence  allotted  them.""  How  many 
twenty-fives,  how  many  hundreds,  were  thus 
turned  out,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive.  But  it 
is  not  presuming  very  far,  to  suppose,  as  the 
one  side  was  destitute  of  defence,  and  the  other 
of  every  sense  of  honour  and  justice,  that  the 
cases  were  numerous ;  and  that  there  were  hun- 
dreds, perhaps  thousands,  who  were  driven  out 
of  house  and  home,  and  turned  loose  on  societv, 

*   7 

"without  any  means  of  subsistence  allotted 
them ;"  and  this,  let  me  repeat,  (it  can  never  be 
too  often  repeated)  during  a  period,  in  which, 
with  the  most  unblushing  falsehood,  Clarendon 
has  dared  to  impose  on  a  betrayed  and  deluded 
world,  the  monstrous  assertion,  that  "  whatever 
their  land,  labour,  or  industry  produced,  was 
their  own,  being  free  from  fear  of  having  it  taken 
from  them  by  the  king,  upon  any  pretence  what- 
ever, without  their  own  consent." 


208  VINDICIJi    HIBERNICJE. 

When  the  monarch  of  three  powerful  king- 
doms, who  ought  to  be  a  pattern  of  honour, 
honesty,  and  justice,  and,  as  Sir  John  Davies  de- 
clared, to  have  scorned  to  "  dispossess  the  mean- 
est of  his  subjects  wrongfully"  becomes  a  com- 
mon depredator  on  their  estates,  and  acts  the 
part  of  the  ravening  wolf,  instead  of  that  of  the 
vigilant  shepherd,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  such 
portion  of  those  subjects  as  form  a  privileged 
cast,  should  prey  upon  and  devour  the  others. 
This  has  ever  been,  and  ever  will  be,  the  result, 
in  all  analogous  cases. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Projected  spoliation  of  Connaught.     Jury  fined 
eighty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  for  not  per- 
juring themselves  by  a  false  -verdict.   Historical 
obliquity. 

THE  project  formed  by  the  pious  James,  of 
an  extensive  plantation  in  Connaught,  for  the 
purpose  of  spoiling  the  Egyptians,  those  wretches 
who  "  did  not  esteem  lawful  matrimony,"  who 
"  built  no  houses,  and  planted  no  orchards  nor 
gardens,"  was,  as  shown  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter, defeated  by  death,  who  snatched  him  away, 
in  the  midst  of  his  career,  to  render  an  account, 
in  another  world,  before  the  omniscient  Judge  of 
mankind,  of  his  rapine  and  depredation  in  this. 
But,  alas  !  the  respite  thus  afforded  to  the  western , 
province  of  Ireland,  was  of  short  duration.  Dur- 
ing the  succeeding  reign,  the  nefarious  project 
was  revived,  by  the  arrogant,  rapacious,  and  vin- 
dictive Wentworth,  who  meditated  nothing  less, 
according  to  Leland,  than  the  subversion  of  the 
title  of  every  estate  in  the  province.* 

*  "  His  project  was  nothing  less  than  to  subvert  the  title  to 
every  estate  in  every  part  of  Connaught,  and  to  establish  a  new 
plantation  through  this  whole  province  ;  a  project,  which, 

27 


210  VINDIC02    HIBERNICJE. 

For  this  stupendous  scheme,  Wentworth  was 
peculiarly  fitted.  He  possessed  great  energy  of 
character,  and  talents  of  a  high  order ;  but  was 
withheld  by  no  sense  of  shame,  no  tie  of  honour, 
no  regard  to  equity,  and  no  "  compunctious  visit- 
ings  of  conscience."  He  completely  filled  Sal- 
lust's  character  of  Catiline : 

"  Alien!  appetens,  sui  profusus." 

Thus  fortified  with  every  requisite  of  head  and 
heart  to  qualify  him  for  a  remorseless  oppressor, 
he  undertook  to  carry  this  project  into  execu- 

when  first  proposed,  in  the  late  reign,  was  received  with  hor- 
ror and  amazement,  but  which  suited  the  undismayed  and 
enterprising  genius  of  lord  Wentworth.  For  this  he  had 
opposed  the  confirmation  of  the  royal  graces,  transmitted  to 
lord  Faulkland,  and  taken  to  himself  the  odium  of  so  flagrant 
a  violation  of  the  royal  promise.  The  parliament  was  at  an 
end  j  and  the  deputy  at  leisure  to  execute  a  scheme,  which,  as 
it  was  offensive  and  alarming,  required  a  cautious  and  delibe- 
rate procedure.  Old  records  of  state,  and  the  memorials  of 
ancient  monasteries,  were  ransacked,  to  ascertain  the  king's 
original  title  to  Connaught.  It  was  soon  discovered,  that  in 
the  grant  of  Henry  the  Third  to  Richard  De  Burgo,  five  can- 
treds  ivere  reserved  to  the  crown,  adjacent  to  the  castle 
of  Athlone  ;  that  THIS  GRANT  INCLUDED  THE 
WHOLE  REMAINDER  OF  THE  PROVINCE,  which 
was  now  alleged  to  have  been  forfeited  by  Aedn  O'Connor, 
the  Irish  provincial  chieftain ;  that  the  lands  and  lordship  of 
De  Burgo,  descended  lineally  to  Edward  the  Fourth;  and 
were  confirmed  to  the  crown  by  a  statute  of  Henry  the  Se- 
venth. The  ingenuity  of  court  lawyers  was  employed  to 
invalidate  all  patents  granted  to  the  possessors  of  these  lands, 
from  the  reign  of  queen  Elizabeth."220 

220  Leland,  II.  35. 


AN    OUTLINE    OF    WENTWORTH. 

lion,  and  would  have  infallibly  succeeded,  but  for 
the  convulsions  in  Scotland  arid  England,  which 
called  him  to  aid  his  master,  in  whose  cause  he 
lost  a  head  which  his  career  in  Ireland  had  indu- 
bitably forfeited. 

Few  men  have  performed  a  distinguished  part 
in  society,  whose  history  is  so  contradictorily 
narrated.  A  correct  account  of,  him  is  stih1  a 
desideratum.  Clarendon,  Nalson,  Carte,  Hume, 
and  all  the  long  train  of  monarchical  writers, 
whine  and  lament  over  his  grave,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  mirror  of  virtue, — a  Phocion,  an  Aristi- 
des,  a  Socrates,  a  De  Witt,  or  a  Washington ; 
and  as  if  he  had  been  offered  up,  an  immaculate 
victim,  to  popular  rage.  But  those  who  take  a 
correct  view  of  his  career,  must  acknowledge 
that  he  was  a  bloated  mass  of  almost  every  spe- 
cies of  vice  and  crime  of  which  a  public  officer 
is  capable. 

Candour,  however,  calls  for  the  acknowledg- 
ment that  the  proceedings  against  him,  in  the 
trial  of  the  impeachment,  were  in  many  respects 
informal  and  irregular  ;  and  that  he  was  offered 
up,  by  the  republican  party  in  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, full  as  much  to  appease  their  resentment 
at  his  apostacy  from  their  cause,  and  to  allay 
their  fears  of  his  talents  and  influence,  as  for  his 
crimes,  atrocious  as  they  were.  But,  whatever 
may  have  been  the  informality  of  the  course 
pursued,  few  public  functionaries  have  ever  been 
brought  to  the  block,  whose  fate  was  more  com- 


212  V1ND1CIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

pietely  sanctioned  by  the  claims  of  substantial 
justice.  No  man  ever  had  much  less  reason  to 
complain  of  informality :  for  whoever  compares 
the  proceedings  on  his  trial,  with  those  on  the 
trial  of  lord  Mountnorris,  will  be  satisfied  that 
there  was  as  much  difference  between  them,  as 
between  the  court  of  Herod  or  Pontius  Pilate, 
and  that  of  Trajan  or  Antoninus.  The  proceed- 
ings of  the  court  held  on  lord  Mountnorris  were 
of  the  most  murderous  character. 

It  is  not  extravagant  to  aver,  that  the  aggre- 
gate crimes  of  hundreds  of  men,  who  have  been 
offered  up  on  gibbets,  as  victims  to  offended 
Justice,  for  depredations  on  property,  would  not 
equal  the  guilt  of  one  single  act  of  Wentworth, — 
the  fine  imposed  on  the  sheriff  and  grand  jury  of 
Galway  :  the  naked  fact  of  which  case  is,  that  the 
jurors,  probably  twenty  in  number,  were  each 
fined  four  thousand  pounds,  or  eighty  thousand 
pounds  sterling,  equal,  according  to  the  present 
value  of  money,  to  about  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  or  nearly  nine  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
because  they  resisted  the  depredations  of  this 
modern  Aristides,  and  refused  to  find  a  title  in 
the  crown,  grounded  on  the  invasion  of  Henry  II. 
or  on  claims  arising  immediately  from  that 
source.  The  sheriff  was  fined  a  thousand  pounds, 
for  returning  such  a  jury.  More  of  this  anon. 

Here  an  apology  is  due  to  the  reader.  This 
statement  is  somewhat  out  of  its  place,  in  point 
of  time.  Let  us  return  to  the  progress  of  Went- 


VICE-REGAL    LOGIC.  213 

worth ;  who  began  his  career  with  the  county  of 
Roscommon,*  where  he  made  a  frothy  address, 
in  which  he  canted  on  the  honour  and  equity 
of  his  royal  master,  and  the  benevolence  of  his 
views  towards  his  good  subjects  of  Connaught. 
But  the  jet  of  it  was  the  comfortable  information, 
that  his  majesty  was  indifferent  whether  they 
found  for  him  or  not ;  conveying  thereby  a  clear 
idea  that  he  would  adopt  some  other  mode  of 
attaining  his  right ;  the  "path  of  which  lay  so  open 
and  plain  before  him."  He  gave  them  to  under- 
stand, that  if  they  consulted  their  own  true  in- 
terest, they  would  find  for  the  crown,  as  they 

*  "•  Wentworth,  at  the  head  of  the  commissioners  of  planta- 
tion, proceeded  to  the  western  province.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
county  of  Leitrim  had  already  acknowledged  the  king's  title 
to  their  lands,  and  submitted  to  a  plantation.  It  was  now 
deemed  expedient  to  begin  with  those  of  Roscommon.  The 
commission  was  opened  in  this  county  ;  the  evidences  of  the 
king's  title  produced,  examined,  and  submitted  to  a  jury, 
formed  of  the  principal  inhabitants,  purposely  (as  the  lord 
deputy  expressed  it)  that '  they  might  answer  the  king  a  round 
fine  in  the  castle-chamber,  in  case  they  should  prevaricate.'' 
They  were  told  by  Wentworth,  that  his  majesty's  intention, 
in  establishing-  his  undoubted  title,  was  to  make  them  a  rich 
and  civil  people  ;  that  he  purposed  not  to  deprive  them  of  their 
iust  possessions,  but  to  invest  them  with  a  considerable  part 
of  his  own ;  that  he  needed  not  their  interposition,  to  vindi- 
cate his  right,  which  might  be  established  by  the  usual  course 
of  law,  upon  an  information  of  intrusion  ;  but  that  he  wished 
his  people  to  share  with  him  in  the  honour  and  profit  of  the 
glorious  and  excellent  -work  he  was  now  to  execute  ;  to  his 
majesty  it  was  indifferent,  whether  their  verdict  should  ac- 
knowledge or  deny  his  title."221 

221  Leland,  III.  36. 


214  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

would  then  have  better  terms  than  "  if  they  were 
passionately  resolved  to  go  over  all  bounds  to 
their  own  wills."222 

One  part  of  this  address  has  escaped  much 
observation  heretofore,  which  nevertheless  de- 
serves the  most  pointed  attention.'  It  would 
afford  room  for  a  commentary  of  a  vohime  on 
the  hideous  oppression  and  rapacity  of  the  Irish 
government : 

"  To  manifest  his  majesty's  justice  and  honour,  I  thought 
fit  to  let  them  know,"  says  the  satrap,  "  that  it  was  his  majes- 
ty's gracious  pleasure,  that  any  mail's  counsel  should  be  fully 
and  willingly  heard,  in  defence  of  their  respective  rights  ;  be- 
ing A  FAVOUR  NEVER  BEFORE  AFFORDED  TO  ANY,  UPON 
TAKING  THESE  KIND  OF  INQJJISITIONS."223 

Here  a  pause,  a  solemn  pause,  is  necessary. 
A  government,  whose  paramount  duty  is  to  pro- 
tect the  persons  and  property  of  its  subjects, 
pursues  for  centuries  a  piratical  system  of  legal 
warfare  on  their  property ;  it  advances  claims 
to  estates,  one,  two,  three,  or  four  hundred  years 
old ;  it  hangs  fines  and  imprisonment  over  the 
heads  of  the  jurors  ;  it  bribes  the  judges ;  and  let 
it  be  deeply  engraven  on  the  mind  of  every  man 
of  candour,  that,  for  above  four  hundred  years, 
the  men  whose  estates  it  sought  to  spoliate,  were 
never,  till  the  time  of  Wentworth,  allowed  the 
favour  of  "  being  heard,  by  counsel,  in  defence  of 
their  respective  rights!"  Tripoli,  Algiers,  and 
Morocco  might  be  safely  defied  to  produce  a 
parallel. 

222  Stratford,  I.  442.  223  Ibid. 


ADMIRABLE  PROOFS  OP  PROPERTY.    215 

The  reader  cannot  be  surprised  that  the  jurors 
of  Roscommon,  under  these  circumstances,  found 
for  the  crown.  Nothing  less  could  have  been 
expected : 

"  The  presence  and  interposition  of  a  lord  deputy,  whose 
character  and  temper  were  fitted  to  operate  on  men's  passions, 
had  probably  their  full  effect  on  this  occasion.  The  king's 
title  was  found,  without  scruple  or  hesitation ;  and  the  verdict 
attended  with  a  petition  for  an  equitable  treatment  of  present 
proprietors,  and  a  due  provision  for  the  church."224 

The  example  of  Roscommon  had  a  decided 
influence  on  the  counties  of  Mayo  and  Sligo, 
where  the  king's  title  was  found,  without  diffi- 
culty. 

Galway  remained.  All  the  arts  of  the  deputy 
were  in  vain.  The  jury  refused  to  find  the  MUs ; 
and,  as  already  stated,  were  enormously  fined 
and  imprisoned.*  ' 

*  "  The  jury  of  the  county  of  Galway  was  summoned  to  meet 
at  Portumna,  on  Aug.  13,  1635,  and  consisted  of  the  principal 
gentlemen  of  the,  county.  The  king's  title  to  all  the  lands  in 
it,  except  such  as  belonged  to  the  church,  or  had  been  granted 
out  by  the  patents  of  his  predecessors,  WAS  PROVED  BY 
THE  CONQUEST  OF  KING  HENRY  II.  and  the  grant 
he  made  of  it  to  Roderic,  lord  of  Connaught ;  by  the  grant  of 
Henry  III.  to  Richard  De  Burgo,  of  twenty-five  cantreds, 
out  of  thirty,  whereof  the  whole  consists,  upon  a  rent  of  three 
hundred  marks  for  the  first  five  years,  and  of  five  hundred 
for  ever  afterwards ;  and  by  the  payment  of  this  rent  into  the 
exchequer,  and  the  allowances  thereof  in  the  sheriff's  accompt 
from  time  to  time  ;  by  the  descent  of  King  Edward  IV.  from 
Lionel,  duke  of  Clarence,  and  the  heiress  of  De  Burgo ;  and 

224  Leland,  III.  37. 


216  VINDICLE    IIIBERNICJE. 

It  is  painful  to  find,  that  every  step  we  take  in 
these  investigations,  affords  additional  evidence 
of  the  prejudice,  the  sinister  views,  or  the  inca- 
pacity of  the  writers  of  Irish  history.  Leland 

by  the  vesting  of  their  lands  in  the  crown,  by  the  statute  of 
10.  Henry  VII.  c.  15. 

"  The  jury,  however,  UPON  PRETENCE  THAT  THE  ACQUI- 
SITION OF  HENRY  II.  WAS  NOT  A  CONQUEST,  but  a  submis- 
sion of  the  inhabitants  ;  that  the  grant  to  Roderic  was  barely  a 
composition,  whereby  the  king  had  only  the  dominion,  but  not 
the  property  of  the  lands,  though  the  rent  paid  sufficiently 
proved  the  latter ;  that,  in  tracing  the  descent  to  Edward  IV. 
proof  had  not  been  made  of  Lionel  duke  of  Clarence's  posses- 
sion ;  and  that  the  statute  of  Henry  VII.  related  to  tenures 
rather  than  to  lands,  though  no  man  could  be  proved  to  have 
any  land  there  in  property  at  that  time,  thought  fit  to  find 
against  the  king's  title,  (though  no  grant  was  produced  from 
the  crown  to  any  ancestor  of  the  possessors,  and  WHERE  NO 

BODY  ELSE  HAS  A  RIGHT,  THE  KING'S  TITLE  MUST  BE  GOOD;) 

and  when  called  upon  to  declare  in  whom  the  freehold  was 
vested,  (if  not  in  the  crown)  they  refused  to  do  so.  The  lord 
deputy  highly  resented  this  proceeding ;  and,  conceiving  it 
would  be  of  ill  example  to  the  rest  of  the  kingdom,  and  would 
retard,  if  not  defeat,  the  execution  of  his  project,  caused  the 
jurors  to  be  prosecuted,  for  a  combination  with  the  sheriff  who 
empannelled  them,  to  defeat  the  king  of  his  right.  They  were 
tried  on  the  27th  of  May,  1636,  FINED  FOUR  THOU- 
SAND POUNDS  A  MAN,  SENTENCED  TO  IM- 
PRISONMENT TILL  IT  WAS  PAID,  AND  TO  AN 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT,  UPON  THEIR  KNEES,  IN 
COURT  AND  AT  THE  ASSIZES,  OF  THEIR  OF- 
FENCE, in  refusing  to  find  -what  they  ought  to  have  found, 
upon  the  evidence  produced,  and  which  their  neighbours  had 
actually  found  upon  the  same."225 

225  Carte,  I.  82. 


HISTORICAL    OBLIQUITY.  217 

narrates,  without  the  slightest  censure,  this  Con- 
naught  spoliation,  unsupported  by  letter-dropping, 
conspiracy,  rebellion,  or  any  accusation  of  not 
building  houses  or  planting  orchards. 

Of  all  the  various  instances  of  the  obliquity  of 
Carte's  history,  there  is  none  more  extraordinary 
than  the  view  he  gives  of  this  hideous  affair.  He 
absolutely  defends  the  proceedings  of  Strafford ; 
and  unqualifiedly  censures  the  jury,  who,  "  on 
the  evidence  produced,  ought  to  have  found,"  he 
says,  "  as  their  neighbours  had  found."  Among 
his  accusations  of  the  jury,  the  first  is,  their 
grounding  their  refusal  of  finding  a  title  to  the 
province,  on  "  THE  PRETENCE,"  as  this  prejudiced 
historian  says,  "  that  the  subjection  of  the  coun- 
try under  Henry  II.  was  a  submission,  not  a  con- 
quest." In  what  a  state  of  delirium  must  the 
mind  of  the  man  be,  who  could  be  so  far  lost  to 
a  sense  of  reason  or  justice,  as  to  style  this  sound 
and  irrefragable  plea  "  a  pretence"  or  to  coun- 
tenance any  claims  resting  on  such  untenable 
ground !  That  in  a  country,  which  for  centuries 
had  been  despoiled  on  pretexts  as  iniquitous, 
such  claims  should  be  advanced  by  a  depredator 
of  the  character  of  Wentworth,  is  not  wonderful : 
but  that  an  historian,  writing,  a  century  after- 
wards, with  all  the  facts  before  him,  on  which  to 
form  a  correct  estimate,  should  for  a  moment 
admit  that  the  titles  to  estates,  held  in  the  same 
families  for  ages,  should  be  affected  by  the  ques- 

28 


218  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

lion  of  the  conquest  or  submission  of  the  country, 
is  inexpressibly  astonishing.  The  invasion  of 
Henry  took  place  in  1172  ;  and  the  spoliation  of 
Connaught  was  projected  in  1636,  that  is,  four 
hundred  and  sixty-four  years  afterwards.  Of  what 
consequence  could  it  have  been  to  the  proprietors 
of  estates,  what  was  the  character  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Henry, — whether  he  received  a  sub- 
mission, or  made  a  conquest  ?  Suppose  it  a 
submission :  does  it  thence  follow,  that  Charles  I. 
had  a  right  to  an  acre,  or  even  a  perch,  of  an 
estate  that  had  descended  from  heir  to  heir,  for 
the  intermediate  four  centuries  and  a  half?  Sup- 
pose it  invasion  :  does  that  enhance  the  strength 
of  the  claim  ?  Had  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  the  whole  nation  been  subdued  by,  and 
sworn  allegiance  to,  Henry  II.  or,  to  give  the 
argument  its  utmost  force,  Henry  V.  VI.  VII.  or 
VIII.  could  that  warrant  a  jury  in  finding  a  title  in 
the  crown  to  the  whole  of  the  soil ;  or  justify  the 
imposition  of  a  fine  of  eighty  thousand  pounds 
sterling  on  the  jury,  for  not  finding  such  title  ? 
Could  any  thing  but  the  most  rampant  spirit  of 
rapine  ever  lay  a  claim  on  such  wretched  ground, 
or  any  thing  but  the  most  dire  insanity  or  obli- 
quity of  mind  ever  undertake  the  palliation  of 
the  vile  deed  ? 

We  have  already  stated,  that  the  project  mis- 
carried ;  not  through  the  honour  or  justice  of  the 
monarch  or  his  agents,  but  through  the  intestine 


REGAL  AND  JUDICIAL  ROBBERY.      219 

troubles  at  home,  which  gave  them  much  more 
serious  and  finally  fatal  employment  than  plun- 
dering the  inhabitants  of  Connaught. 

We  have  asserted,  that  the  judges  were  bribed. 
This  is  recorded  by  Wentworth's  own  hand.  To 
ensure  the  assistance  of  the  court,  he  advised  the 
king  to  bestow  on  the  lord  chief  justice  and  the 
chief  baron,  four  shillings  in  the  pound,  from 
the  first  yearly  rent  raised  out  of  the  depredated 
estates,  in  order  to  interest  them  in  promoting 
the  rapine.  The  "royal  martyr"  worthy  of 
such  a  representative,  gave,  and  the  judges,  wor- 
thy of  such  a  monarch  and  such  a  deputy,  re- 
ceived, the  wages  of  their  prostitution. 

Well  might  Shakspeare  exclaim, 

"  Thieves  for  their  robbery  have  authority, 
When  judges  steal  themselves." 

The  brilje  had  the  desired  effect :  for  Went- 
worth  says, 

"  I  have  found  it,  upon  observation,  to  be  the  best  given 
that  ever  was ;  for  that  by  these  me,ans  they  attend  that  busi- 
ness with  as  much  care  and  diligence  as  if  it  had  been  their 
own  private ;  and  that  every  four  shillings,  once  paid,  would 
better  his  majesty'' s  revenue  four  pounds"3** 

Who  can  read  this  odious  detail,  without 
standing  aghast  with  horror  ?  A  king  conspires 
with  his  vicegerent,  to  despoil  his  defenceless 
subjects ;  and,  to  ensure  success  in  their  flagitious 
undertaking,  they  tender  a  manifest  bribe  to  the 
judges  who  are  to  decide  the  cause.  The  amount 

225  Stratford,  I.  442. 


220  VIND1CIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

of  this  bribe  depends  on  the  extent  of  the  depre- 
dation. They  agree  to  share  among  them  the 
spoils ;  which  are  divided  into  five  parts,  four  of 
which  fall  to  the  share  of  the  king  and  deputy, — 
the  master  plunderers ;  and  the  fifth  to  their 
agents  and  accomplices,  the  judges.  And  yet  this 
king  is  by  bigoted  royalists  reverenced  as  an 
English  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  exemplar  of  every 
royal  virtue  ! 

But  the  hardened  and  iniquitous  Wentworth 
was  not  satisfied  with  corrupting  the  judges.  He 
paid  equal  attention  to  the  jurors,  of  whom  he 
sought  out  two  kinds ; — one  poor  and  needy,  who 
might  easily  be  bribed,  "fit  men  to  serve  on  juries^ 
who  would  gwe  furtherance  to  the  king's  title;"™ 
and  the  other  veiy  wealthy,  whom  he  might 
plunder,  by  heavy  fines,  if  they  prevaricated,  as 
he  called  it.  In  the  latter  case,  he  would  have, 
to  use  his  own  words,  "  persons  of  such  means 
as  might  answer  to  the  king  in  a  round  fine,  in 
the  Castle-Chamber  ;*  because  the  fear  of  that 

*  "  So  general  and  lasting  were  the  terrors  arising  from  these 
severe  proceedings  of  the  deputy,  that,  in  1637,  the  whole 
body  of  the  gentry  of  the  county  of  Galway  offered  to  make 
a  surrender  of  their  estates  to  the  crown ;  and  for  that  purpose 
sent  a  letter  of  attorney  to  the  earl  of  Clanrickard,  then  at 
London,  signed  by  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  persons  of 
the  best  quality  in  the  county.  '  At  the  same  time,  the  still 
imprisoned  sheriff  and  jurors,  instead  of  seeking  redress,  pe- 
titioned, but  in  vain,  for  pardon,  offering  to  acknowledge  the 
deputy's  justice  and  their  own  errors  of  judgment,  upon  con- 

226  Strafford,  I.  339. 


HIGH-HANDED    OPPRESSION.  221 

fine  would  be  apter  to  produce  the  desired  effect 
in  such  persons,  than  in  others  who  had  little  or 
nothing  to  lose."227 

The  villany  of  this  scheme  of  depredation  far 
exceeded  that  practised  in  former  times.  Some 
attention  had  been  till  now  paid  to  letters  patent, 
duly  authenticated  from  the  crown.  These  were 
generally  regarded  as  affording  proofs  of  good 
titles ;  and  rescued  the  possessors  from  the  ruin 
inflicted  on  their  neighbours.  But  the  chief  part 
of  the  lands,  proposed  to  be  spoliated  by  Went- 
worth,  being  fenced  round  with  patents,  he  found 

dition  only  that  they  and  the  rest  might  be  put  upon  the  same 
footing  with  the  other  planted  counties ;  for  in  these  cases, 
the  general  rule  was,  that  a  fourth  part  of  their  land  should  be 
taken  from  the  natives,  with  an  increase  of  rent  upon  the  re- 
mainder ;  but  the  county  of  Galway,  on  account  of  its  former 
refractoriness,  was  planted  at  a  double  rate  ;  so  that  they  lost 
half.' 

"  Wentworth  was  so  far  from  being  satisfied  with  this  sub- 
missive petition  and  offer,  that  he  insisted  upon  a  public  ac- 
knowledgment from  these  jurors,  of  their  having  committed  not 
only  an  error  in  judgment,  but  even  actual  perjury,  in  the  ver- 
dict they  had  given  -,  which  being  refused  by  them,  he,  be- 
sides planting  their  country  at  the  rate  before  mentioned,  pro- 
cured an  order  from  the  king,  that  their  agents  in  London 
should  be  sent  prisoners  to  Dublin,  to  be  tried  before  himself 
in  the  castle-chamber,  for  having  dared  to  patronise  their 
cause.  These  severities,  however,  raised  no  small  apprehen- 
sions in  some  that  were  about  the  king,  and  even  the  king 
himself,  lest  they  might  disaffect  the  people  of  Ireland,  and 
dispose  them  to  call  over  the  Irish  regiments  from  Flanders 
to  their  assistance."228 

327  Strafford,  I.  442.  *8  Curry,  I.  157. 


222  VINDICLK  HIBERNIO^E. 

that  his  project  Would  be  defeated,  and  he  be 
deprived  of  his  prey,  if  he  admitted  the  validity 
of  letters  patent.  He  therefore  determined  to 
reject  them;  and  so  utterly  regardless  was  he 
of  even  the  slightest  appearance  of  honour  or 
honesty,  that  he  assigns,  as  a  justification  of  the 
extensiveness  of  his  spoliation,  the  very  reason 
that  should  have  been  a  shield  to  rescue  the 
sufferers  from  his  merciless  gripe  : 

"  In  former  plantations  in  Ireland,  all  men  claiming  by 
letters  patents  had  the  full  benefit  of  them,  either  in  enjoying 
the  lands  granted  them,  or  other  lands  equivalent  thereunto, 
whether  their  letters  patent  were  valid  or  invalid.  And  in- 
deed, in  those  plantations,  that  favour  might  better  be  yielded, 
where  the  lands  claimed  by  letters  patent  were  not  in  any 
great  or  considerable  proportion,  than  here,  where  ALMOST 

ALL  THE  LANDS  FALLING  UNDER  PLANTATION  ARE  GRANT- 
fcD,  OR  MENTIONED  TO  BE  GRANTED,  BY  LETTERS  PATENT."229 

229  Strafford,  II.  139. 

'  te. 


(     223     ) 


CHAPTER  X. 

Wide-spread  scene  of  private  spoliation.  Needy 
projectors  and  rapacious  courtiers.  Defective 
titles. 

IN  the  last  chapters,  we  have  exhibited  the 
unbridled  spirit  of  rapine  and  plunder,  by  which 
the  Irish  were  despoiled  by  then*  government, 
during  the  grand  millenium  of  lord  Clarendon 
and  Dr.  Warner. 

But,  execrable  as  were  those  proceedings,  and 
profligate  and  abandoned  as  were  the  rulers  by 
whom  they  were  perpetrated,  the  sufferings  and 
spoliations  experienced  by  the  Irish,  from  indivi- 
dual rapacity,*  far  exceeded  them,  in  the  wide 

*  "  Ireland  had  long  been  a  prey  to  projectors  and  greedy 
courtiers,  who  procured  grants  of  concealed  lands  ;  and,  by 
setting  up  the  king's  title,  forced  the  right  owners  of  them,  to 
avoid  the  plague  and  expense  of  a  litigation,  to  compound  with 
them  on  -what  terms  they  pleased.  It  was  high  time  to  put  a 
stop  to  so  scandalous  a  traffic,  which  reflected  dishonour  upon 
the  crown,  alienated  the  minds  of  the  people  from  the  govern- 
ment, and  raised  CONTINUAL  CLAMOURS  AND  UNEASINESS  IN 
EVERY  PART  OF  THE  KINGDOM.  Many  proprietors  of  lands 
could  derive  no  title  from  the  crown;  the  letters  patents  of 
others  were  insufficient  in  law,  defective,  doubtful,  or  not  plain 
enough  to  prevent  dispute.  Commissions  had  been  granted, 
from  time  to  time,  to  remedy  these  defects,  and  compositions 


224  VINDIC1JE    HIBERNICJE. 

scope  they  embraced,  which  was  the  whole  ex- 
tent of  the  kingdom. 

made  with  the  commissioners.  But,  as  these  commissions 
were  afterwards  either  renewed  or  recalled,  and  new  ones  is- 
sued out,  it  was  questioned  whether,  by  such  later  commis- 
sions, the  said  former  commissions,  and  the  compositions 
grounded  thereupon,  were  not  revoked,  countermanded,  and 
annulled. 

"  Besides,  the  commissions  themselves  might  possibly  be 
defective,  uncertain,  or  not  extend  to  give  the  commissioners  as 
much  power  and  authority  as  they  exercised  in  making  com- 
positions, or  passing  letters  patents  to  the  subject,  who,  pre- 
suming every  thing  to  be  rightly  done,  by  persons  duly  au- 
thorized, and  his  own  possession  to  be  fully  assured  to  him, 
found  himself  mistaken  in  the  end.  For  if  either  the  commis- 
sions, or  the  king's  letters  upon  which  they  were  grounded,  were 
lost,  or  not  enrolled  and  recorded ;  if  the  lands  and  tenements 
granted,  or  intended  to  be  granted,  in  the  letters  patents,  were 
mis-named,  mis-recited,  or  not  named  and  recited  therein ;  if 
offices  and  inquisitions  had  not  been  found,  for  proof  of  the 
king's  title,  before  the  making  of  such  grants  or  letters  patents ; 
or  if  there  were  any  defect  in  such  offices  and  inquisitions ; 
if  there  were  any  omission  of  sufficient  and  special  non  ob- 
stantes  of  particular  statutes,  that  ought  to  have  been  men- 
tioned in  the  letters  patents ;  if  there  were  any  mistake  or 
omission  in  the  recital  of  leases  upon  the  premises,  or  of  some 
part  thereof,  whether  of  record  or  no ;  if  there  were  any  lack 
of  certainty,  miscasting,  or  mis-rating  of  the  true  yearly  value 
and  rates  of  such  lands  and  tenements,  or  of  some  part  thereof, 
or  of  the  yearly  rents  out  of  the  premises,  or  some  part 
thereof  mentioned  in  the  letters  patents ;  if  there  were  any 
mistake  in  the  apportioning  or  dividing  the  said  rents,  or  the 
tenures  of  any  of  the  land  ;  if  the  premises,  or  any  part  thereof, 
were  in  such  grants  estimated  at  a  less,  or  even  at  a  greater 
value  than  in  truth  they  were ;  if  the  towns,  villages,  places, 
baronies,  hundreds,  or  counties,  where  the  lands  and  tenements 
so  granted  lay,  chanced  to  be  misnamed ;  if  the  natures,  kinds, 
sorts,  qualities  or  quantities  of  such  lands  and  tenements,  or 


A   PICTURE    OP    GOOD    GOVERNMENT.        225 

This  is  perfectly  natural ;  and  what  might  have 
been  inferred  from  the  proceedings  of  the  rulers, 
even  were  history  silent  on  the  subject.  The 
experience  of  the  world  proves,  that  severe  laws 
and  good  government  frequently  fail  to  repress 
fraud  and  violence,  even  when  corporal  punish- 
ments and  penalties  are  held  out  in  terrorem,  to 
awe  the  offenders.  But,  we  repeat,  when  a 
government  assumes  the  aspect  of  the  plunderer, 
and  sets  the  alluring  example  of  spoliation ; 
when  it  violates,  in  the  most  profligate  manner, 
the  rights  of  property,  held  by  regular  descent, 
for  ages ;  when,  with  sacrilegious  hand,  it  tears 
down  all  the  barriers  erected  by  law,  honour, 
honesty,  and  justice  ;  but,  more  particularly  than 
all  the  rest,  when  it  divides  a  nation  into  two 
casts,  and  prostrates  one,  tied  neck  and  heels, 
at  the  feet  of  the  other,  as  the  Helots  were  at  the 
feet  of  the  Spartans, — the  native  Irish,  previous 

of  any  part  thereof,  were  not  truly  set  forth  and  named  j  or  if, 
in  grants  to  corporations  and  bodies  politic,  whether  spiritual 
or  temporal,  the  right  style,  by  which  they  were  denominated 
and  distinguished,  was  not  used :  in  all  these,  and  MANY 
OTHER  CASES,  the  letters  patents  were  liable  to  be  disputed  and 
set  aside.  This  rendered  all  possessions  very  precarious  ;  and 
there  were  Jew  gentlemen  in  the  kingdom,  but  had  been,  some 
time  or  other,  questioned  for  their  title,  or  disturbed  in  the 
enjoyment  of  their  estates.  The  inconveniences  whereof  were 
very  visible,  in  the  discouragement  of  husbandry  (few  persons 
caring  to  improve  lands  which  they  cannot  call  their  own)  and 
in  the  general  dissatisfaction  of  the  people."230 

230  Carte,  I.  60. 
29 


226  VINDICIJE  HIBEQNICJE. 

to  the  reformation,  at  those  of  the  successive 
swarms  of  needy  English  adventurers,  who  mi- 
grated thither  for  the  purpose  of  repairing  their 
shattered  fortunes, — and.  subsequent  to  the  re- 
formation, the  Roman  Catholics  at  the  feet  of 
the  miserable  oligarchy  styling  itself  "  the  Pro- 
testant ascendency ;"  ,what  can  be  the  result  of 
such  a  state  of  things,  but  that  the  favoured  cast 
will  be  base,  corrupt,  unjust,  and  tyrannical ;  and 
violate,  as  they  generally  may  with  impunity, 
every  law  of  God  and  man,  to  the  oppression  of 
the  degraded  cast?  and  that  the  latter  forlorn 
description  will  be  abject,  timid,  crouching,  and 
forced  to  submit  to  every  indignity,  insult,  and 
depredation,*  or,  if  they  resist,  be  crushed,  with 
added  weight,  to  their  previous  sufferings. 

*  Among  the  grievances  which  are  so  pathetically  enume- 
rated in  the  Remonstrance  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  agreed 
upon,  March  17,  1642,  the  following  is  applicable  to  the  sub- 
ject of  the  present  chapter,  and  is  confirmed  by  the  preceding 
extract  from  Leland  :  "  The  procuring  of  false  inquisitions 
upon  feigned  titles  of  their  estates,  against  many  hundred  years1 
possession,  and  no  traverse  or  petition  of  right  admitted  there- 
unto, and  jurors,  denying  to  find  such  offices,  were  censured 
even  to  public  infamy  and  ruin  of  their  estates ;  the  finding 
thereof  being  against  their  consciences  and  their  evidences : 
and  nothing  must  stand  against  such  offices  taken  of  great  and 
considerable  parts  of  the  kingdom,  but  letters  patents  under 
the  great  seal :  and  if  letters  patents  were  produced,  (as  in 
most  cases  they  were)  none  must  be  allowed  valid,  nor  yet 
sought  to  be  legally  avoided :  so  that  of  late  times,  by  the  un- 
derhand working  of  Sir  William  Parsons,  knight,  now  one  of 
the  lords  justices  here,  and  the  arbitrary  illegal  power  of  the 
two  impeached  judges  in  Parliament,  and  others  drawn  in  by 


RAPACIOUS    PROJECTORS.  227 

£ 

Such  was  the  hideous  picture  exhibited  in 
Ireland,  during  that  period,  which  the  world, 
deluded  by  dishonest  writers,  of  great  but  unde- 
served celebrity,  has  been  universally  led  to 
regard  as  "  a  blessed  condition  of  peace  and 
security" 

The  great  extent  of  the  last  chapters  precludes 
the  necessity  of  being  prolix  with  the  present 
one.  I  shall  therefore  be  as  brief  as  possible, 
and  reduce  it  within  narrow  bounds. 

The  land  was  covered  with  hosts  of  pimps, 
spies,  and  informers,  whose  eternal  employment 
was  finding  flaws  in  the  titles  of  gentlemen's 
estates,  and,  if  possible,  ejecting  them,  in  which 
they  were  constantly  countenanced  by  govern- 
ment ;  or,  if  they  failed  in  this  part  of  the  project, 
forcing  them  to  ruinous  compositions. 

"  Needy  projectors  and  rapacious  courtiers  still  continued 
the  scandalous  traffic  of  pleading  the  king's  title  against  the 
possessors  of estates ,  of  seizing  their  lands,  or  forcing  them  to 
grievous  compositions"*31 

We  have  asserted  that  this  system  of  rapine 
was  more  oppressive  than  that  of  James.  A 
moment's  reflection  will  satisfy  every  reader  on 
this  point.  That  miserable  king  only  spoliated 
a  twentieth  part  of  the  island ;  whereas  the 

their  advice  and  council,  one  hundred  and  fifty  letters  patents 
•were  avoided  in  one  morning;  which  course  continued  until  all 
the  patents  of  the  kingdom,  to  a  few,  were  by  them  and  their 
associates  declarsd  void."232 

231  Leland,  III.  15.  ^  Carte,  III.  137. 


228  V1NDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

informers  harassed,  tricked,  and  preyed  upon  the 
inhabitants  of  the  remaining  nineteen-twentieths. 
In  the  preceding  note,  page  225,  Carte  expressly 
informs  us,  that  "  there  were  few  gentlemen  in 
the  kingdom,  who  had  not  been,  some  time  or 
other,  questioned  for  their  title,  or  disturbed  in 
the  possession  of  their  estates." 

"  They  who  were  too  poor  or  too  spiritless  to  engage  in 
distant  adventures,  courted  fortune  in  Ireland.  Under  pre- 
tence of  improving  the  king's  revenue  in  a  country  where  it 
was  far  less  than  the  charge  of  government,  they  obtained 
commissions  of  inquiry  into  defective  titles,  and  grants  of  con- 
cealed lands  and  rents  belonging  to  the  crown  ;  the  great  benefit 
of  which  was  generally  to  accrue  to  the  projector,  whilst  the 
king  had  but  an  inconsiderable  proportion  of  the  concealment,  or 
a  small  advance  of  rent.  DISCOVERERS  WERE  EVERY  WHERE 

BUSILY  EMPLOYED  IN  FINDING  OUT   FLAWS   IN  MEN'S  TITLES 

TO  THEIR  ESTATES.  The  old  pipe-rolls  were  searched,  to 
find  the  original  rents  with  which  they  had  been  charged.  The 
patent  rolls,  in  the  tower  of  London,  were  ransacked  for  the 
ancient  grants.  No  means  of  industry,  or  DEVICES,  were  left 
untried,  to  force  the  possessors  to  accept  of  nerv  grants,  at  an 
advanced  rent.  In  general,  men  were  either  conscious  of  the 
defects  in  their  titles,  or  alarmed  at  the  trouble  and  expense  of 
a  contest  with  the  crown,  or  fearful  of  the  issue  of  such  a  con- 
test, at  a  time,  and  in  a  country,  where  the  prerogative  was 
highly  strained,  and  strenuously  supported  by  the  judges. 
These  inquiries,  therefore,  commonly  ended  in  a  new  compo- 
sition, made  at  as  cheap  a  rate,  and  as  easy  an  advance  of  rent, 
as  the  possessors  could  obtain."^33 

Can  the  history  of  the  world  produce,  in  a 
state  of  peace,  such  a  hideous  order  of  things  as 
is  here  detailed  ?  An  entire  nation  divided  into 
two  classes,  plunderers  and  plundered, — spies 

233  Ltland,  II.  549. 


SPIES,   PIMPS,   AND    INFORMERS.  229 

and  informers,  and  victims  of  their  malice  and 
avarice  !  What  scenes  of  distress  and  wretched- 
ness, what  instances  of  rapine,  what  fraud,  what 
trick,  what  chicane,  what  forgery,  what  perjury, 
must  have  taken  place  in  such  a  state  of  society, 
when  the  baleful  race  of  informers  and  "  disco- 
verers were  every  where  busily  employed  in 
finding  out  flaws  in  men's  titles  to  their  estates!" 
And  this  in  lord  Clarendon's  millenium  !  that 
"blessed  condition  of  peace  and  security,"  when 
"  whatsoever  their  land,  labour,  or  industry  pro- 
duced, was  their  own  !" 

Fastidious  readers  will  murmur  at  the  constant 
repetition  of  the  development  of  the  falsehood  of 
lord  Clarendon,  which  occurs  in  this  work.  But 
what  is  to  be  done  in  such  a  case  ?  If  fraud, 
falsehood,  and  imposture,  every  step  we  take, 
cross  our  path,  must  we  pass  them  over  un- 
noticed, from  deference  to  that  fastidiousness, 
which,  while  it  submits  cheerfully  to  the  eternal 
repetition  of  falsehood,  affects  to  be  shocked  at 
the  repetition  of  its  detection  ? 


(     230     ) 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Slanders  of  the  Irish  character.  Honourable  tes- 
timonials. Baron  Finglass.  Sir  Edward  Coke. 
Sir  John  Dames.  Highland  missionaries  to  civi- 
lize the  Irish.  Project  of  Irish  plantations  in 
England  and  Scotland. 

TO  palliate,  or  even  to  justify,  these  spoliations, 
the  Irish  of  that  era  are  represented  as  rude, 
barbarous,  savage,  and  intolerant  of  law  and  or- 
der. Were  this  statement  correct,  it  would  by  no 
means  justify  the  proceedings  which  we  have 
here  detailed.  There  is  no  law,  human  or  divine, 
which  warrants  a  civilized  man  in  seizing  the 
possessions  of  him  who  is,  or  whom  he  pretends 
to  be,  uncivilized.  Any  law  that  would  have 
warranted  James,  in  his  conduct  to  his  Ulster 
and  Leinster  subjects,  warranted  Cortes,  Pizarro, 
and  Almagro,  in  their  lawless  devastations  in 
Mexico  and  Peru.  Indeed  the  Spaniards  may 
be  more  readily  defended  than  James.  The 
wretched  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  had  no  claim 
on  the  protection  of  their  invaders  :  they  were 
despoiled  by  a  host  of  armed  banditti,  after  a 
regular  warfare.  But  the  ill-fated  Irish  were 
plundered  and  made  a  prey  of  by  a  prince  whose 
paramount  duty  was,  not  only  not  to  depredate 


ENCOMIASTIC    CHARACTER.  231 

on  them  himself,  but  to  protect  them  from  the 
depredations  of  others. 

But  here  we  meet  the  slanderers,  who  give 
such  hideous  accounts  of  the  Irish,  on  the  very 
threshold  ;  and  are  able  to  stamp  on  their  fore- 
heads the  seal  of  falsehood  in  the  most  legible 
characters.  The  evidence  we  produce  is  such 
as  no  man  living  will  dare  dispute.  It  is  not  de- 
rived from  O'Sullivan,  O'Connor,  O'Halloran,  or 
Curry.  To  these  writers,  objections  of  partiality 
would  be  made,  by  those  prejudiced  men  who 
delight  in  every  thing,  however  gross,  however 
unjust,  that  defames  or  destroys  the  Irish  charac- 
ter. We  appeal  to  Patrick  Finglass,  Esq.  chief 
baron  of  the  exchequer,  under  Henry  VIII.  to 
Coke,  the  author  of  the  Institutes,  and  to  that 
John  Davies,  king  James's  attorney-general  m 
Ireland,  who  brought  the  accusation  against  the 
inhabitants  of  Ulster,  of  "  not  building  houses  nor 
planting  orchards"  to  prove  that  they  had  no 
lands  of  inheritance. 

Baron  Finglass  places  the  Irish  character  on 
far  higher  ground  than  that  of  the  English,  so 
far  as  respects  submission  to  law  and  justice : 

"  It  is  a  great  abusion  and  reproach,  that  the  laws  and  sta- 
tuts  made  in  this  lond  are  not  observed  ne  kept,  after  the 
making  of  theme,  eight  days  ;  which  matter  is  oone  of  the  dis- 
tractions of  Englishmen  of  this  lond  :  and  divers  Irishmen  doth 
observe  and  kepe  such  larvs  and  statuts,  which  they  make  upon 
hills  in  their  country,  firm  and  stable^  without  breaking  them 
for  any  favour  or  re-ward"™* 

234  Hibernica,  101. 


232  VINDICUE    H1BERNICJE. 

Edward  Coke  delivers  his  opinion  of  the  Irish, 
in  a  high  and  encomiastic  style  of  commendation: 

"  I  have  been  informed  by  many  of  those  that  have  had 
judicial  places  there,  and  [know]  partly  of  my  own  knowledge, 
that  THERE  IS  NO  NATION  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
WORLD  THAT  ARE  GREATER  LOVERS  OF  JUS- 
TICE than  they  are  ;  which  virtue  must  of  course  be  accompa- 
nied by  many  others ,"235 

In  portraying  the  Irish  character,  Sir  John 
Davies  has  displayed  more  talent  and  candour 
than  are  to  be  found  in  his  forensic  development 
of  the  rights  of  inheritance. 

"  They  will  gladly  continue  in  this  condition  of  subjects, 
without  defection,  or  adhering  to  any  other  lord  or  king,  as 
long  as  they  may  be  protected  and  justly  governed,  -without 
oppression  on  the  one  side,  or  impunity  on  the  other.  For 
THERE  IS  NO  PEOPLE  UNDER  THE  SUN  THAT 
DOTH  LOVE  EQUAL  AND  INDIFFERENT  JUS- 
TICE BETTER  THAN  THE  IRISH;  or  -will  rest  better 
satisjied  with  the  execution  thereof,  although  it  be  against 
themselves ;  so  that  they  may  have  the  protection  and  benefit 
of  the  law,  -when  upon  just  cause  they  do  desire  z^."23,6 

"  I  dare  affirm,  that  in  the  space  of  five  years  last  past, 
there  have  not  been  found  so  many  malefactors  worthy  of 
death,  in  all  the  six  circuits  of  this  realm,  which  is  now  di- 
vided into  thirty-two  shires  at  large,  as  in  one  circuit  of  six 
shires,  namely,  the  western  circuit  in  England.  For  the  truth 
is,  that,  in  time  of  peace,  THE  IRISH  ARE  MORE  FEARFUL  TO 
OFFEND  THE  LAW  THAN  THE  ENGLISH,  or  any  other  nation 
rvhatsoever"237 

Yet  this  is  the  nation  which  the  miserable  herd 
of  scribblers  who  have  undertaken  its  history, 
have  stigmatized  as  barbarous,  savage,  and  wild : 

235  Coke,  IV.  349.         236  Davies,  213.         237  Idem,  200. 


AN    IRISH   PLANTATION    IN   ENGLAND.       233 

and  who  were  to  be  civilized  by  plantations  of 
the  polished  and  refined  Highlanders,  for  whom 
their  countryman  James  despoiled  the  Irish  of 
their  estates.  The  idea  of  bringing  the  wild  and 
savage  Highlanders  into  Ireland,  to  tame  and 
civilize  a  nation,  of  which  the  agent  of  their 
despoiler  bore  this  exalted  testimony,  tiiat  "  no 
people  under  the  sun  did  love  equal  and  indiffer- 
ent justice  better,"  is  almost  as  romantic  as  it 
would  be  to  bring  a  party  of  the  refined  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Alleghany  mountains,  to  teach  our 
beaux  and  belles  to  dance  cotillions  and  minuets. 
The  character  drawn  by  these  writers,  is  true 
or  false.  But  it  cannot  be  false :  for  no  rational 
man  could  for  a  moment  suppose  that  these 
three  great  public  officers  of  the  crown  of  Eng- 
land could  conspire  in  uttering  falsehoods  to 
flatter  the  Irish,  the  Helots  of  England  :  and  if  it 
be  true,  as  it  must  be,  then  is  it  clear  that  it  would 
have  been  full  as  correct  and  as  wise,  perhaps 
more  so,  to  make  a  plantation  of  Irish  in  Scot- 
land or  England,  to  civilize  those  nations,  as  to 
introduce  the  Scotch  or  English  into  Ireland,  for 
the  same  benevolent  purpose.  These  nations,  at 
that  period,  carried  on  their  border  wars  with  a 
ruthless  and  infernal  ferocity,  barbarity,  and  de- 
solation, that  will  stand  a  comparison  with  the 
so-much-detested  ravages  of  the  Huns,  Goths, 
and  Vandals.  Fire  and  sword  cleared  their  path 
of  every  thing,  animate  or  inanimate,  that  fell 
in  their  way.  Neither  age,  sex,  nor  condition 

30 


234  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

escaped.  To  remove  all  doubt  on  the  subject,  I 
submit  a  specimen  of  a  five  days'  inroad  into  Scot- 
land, by  the  earl  of  Sussex,  about  thirty  years 
previous  to  the  famous  northern  plantation. 

"  A  Note  of  a  Journey  into  Twiddle,  by  the  earl  of  Sussex, 
her  majesties  lieutenant  in  the  north,  begun  the  17th  of  April, 
'1570,  and  ending  the  22dofthe  same. 

"  The  17th  of  April,  1570,  the  earl  of  Sussex  and  the  lord 
Hunsdon,  governor  of  Berwick,  with  all  the  garrisons  and 
power  of  the  east  marches,  came  to  Warke,  and  entered  into 
Tividale,  in  Scotland,  the  18th,  at  the  break  of  day,  and  burnt 
all  the  castles  and  towns  as  they  went,  until  they  came  to  the 
castle  of  Moss,  standing  in  a  strong  marsh,  and  belonging  to 
the  lord  of  Fernhurst,  which  they  burnt  and  razed,  and  so 
burnt  the  country  until  they  came  to  Craling. 

"  The  same  day,  Sir  John  Foster,  with  all  the  garrisons 
and  force  of  the  middle  marches,  entered  into  Tividale  and 
Expesgate  Head,  sixteen  miles  from  Warke,  and  so  burnt  all 
the  country,  until  they  came  to  a  strong  castle,  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  mother  of  lord  Fernhurst,  which  he  burnt  and 
razed;  and  so  burnt  all  the  other  castles  and  towns,  until  he 
came  to  Craling,  where  both  companies  met,  and  so  went  up 
the  river  of  Tivit,  and  burnt  and  threw  down  all  the  castles 
and  towns  upon  the  river,  until  they  came  to  Jedworth,  where 
they  lodged  this  day. 

"  The  19th,  the  army  was  divided  into  two  parts,  whereof 
the  one  did  pass  the  river  of  Tivit,  and  burnt  and  razed  the 
castle  of  Fernhurst,  Hunthill,  and  Bederoll,  and  passed  on  to 
Minte  :  and  the  other  part  of  the  army  burnt  in  like  sort  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  Tivit,  until  he  came  to  Hawick. 

"  The  20th,  the  army  went  to  Branshaw,  the  lord  of  Buck- 
lough's  house,  which  was  wholly  overthrown  with  powder ; 
and  then  divided  and  burnt,  on  the  north  of  the  river  of  Tivit, 
more  into  the  inland,  all  the  castles  and  towns  in  that  country. 

"  The  21st,  the  army  was  divided,  and  one  part  went  to  the 
river  of  Bowbeat,  and  burnt  all  on  both  sides  of  that  river,  and 
the  other  part  went  to  the  river  of  Caile,  and  burnt  all  on  both 


BLESSED  ARE  THE  MERCIFUL.      235 

sides  of  this  river  ;  ALL  WHICH  TIME  THERE  WAS  NEVER  ANY 

SHOW   OF   RESISTANCE. 

"  And  it  is  conceived  by  such  as  know  the  enemy's  part  of 
Tividale,  that  there  are  razed,  overthrown,  and  burnt,  in  this 
journey,  ABOVE  FIFTY  STRONG  CASTLES  AND 
PILES,  AND  ABOVE  THREE  HUNDRED  VIL- 
LAGES."238 

It  may  be  fairly  questioned,  whether  a  band  of 
demons,  escaped  from  the  regions  of  Lucifer, 
could,  with  their  wonted  activity,  in  five  days, 
have  perpetrated  more  devastation  than  my  lord 
Sussex  and  his  garrisons  had  the  pleasure  of  ac- 
complishing, upon  the  unresisting  Scotchmen,  in 
that  space  of  time.  The  merit  is  enhanced  ten- 
fold, by  the  circumstance  that  it  was  executed  on 
an  unresisting  enemy ;  and  this  forms  the  proud- 
est wreath  of  the  laurel  crown  that  entwined  the 
brow  of  the  mighty  hero  !  He  ran  no  risk  of 
his  own  precious  life,  nor  of  those  of  his  merciful 
and  heroic  followers.  To  spare  the  lives  of  his 
soldiers,  is  the  first  duty  of  a  general.  That  no- 
thing in  human  form  ever  exceeded  the  horrors 
of  this  exploit,  within  the  time  it  occupied,  cannot 
be  doubted.  Fifty  castles  and  three  hundred  "vil- 
lages consumed  in  five  days!  Illustrious  achieve- 
ment !  Attila  or  Genghis  Khan  might  have  stu- 
died the  art  of  desolation  to  advantage,  under 
my  lord  Sussex.  With  what  propriety  or  decency 
writers  belonging  to  that  nation  dare  to  stigma- 
tize the  cotemporaneous  Irish  as  savages  and 

238  Cabala,  174. 


236  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

barbarians,  let  the  world  judge.  And  be  it  ob- 
served, that  my  lord  Scroope  made  as  pleasant 
an  inroad  beyond  the  borders,  in  a  different  di- 
rection, at  the  same  time ;  and  equally  signalized 
his  humanity,  and  his  taste  for  bonfires.*  With 
similar  exploits  of  this  polished  and  humane  na- 
tion, to  which  Ireland  stands  so  much  indebted 
for  her  civilization,  we  could  fill  a  dozen  chapters 
for  the  edification  of  the  reader :  but  we  presume 
it  can  hardly  be  necessary.  Let  us,  however, 
without  offence,  offer  a  gentle  hint  to  English- 
men, and  more  especially  to  their  writers,  that 
whenever  the  subject  of  savages  and  barbarians 
is  started,  it  would  not  be  improper  to  bear  in 
mind  the  homely,  but  instructive  proverb,  "Men 
of  glass,  throw  no  stones."  To  this  lesson,  hardly 
one  of  them  ever  pays  due  attention. 

*  "  The  Rode  of  the  lord  Scroope,  warden  of  the  west  marches 
of  England,  into  Scotland. 

"  Who,  the  ITth  of  April,  at  ten  of  the  clock  at  night,  with 
three  thousand  horse  and  foot,  came  to  Ellesingham,  on  the 
Wednesday  at  night,  and  burned  that  town  in  the  morning, 
being  from  Carlisle  twenty  miles.  On  Thursday,  he  burned 
besides  Hoddam,  the  Maymes,  the  town,  and  all  the  houses, 
which  is  the  lord  Herryes' ;  that  day  they  burned  Trayletrow, 
which  is  the  lord  Maxwell's  ;  they  burned  the  town  of  Rey- 
•well,  which  is  the  lord  Copland's  and  the  lord  Homeyne's. 
They  burned  the  house  of  Copewell,  and  the  demesne  of  the 
lord  Copland's.  They  burned  the  town  ofBlackshievc,  which 
is  the  lord  Maxwell's ;  item,  the  town  of  Sherrington,  of  the 
same  :  item,  the  town  of  Lowzwood,  of  the  same  lord's."339 

239  Cabala,  175. 


BLESSED  ARE  THE  MERCIFUL.      237 

The  barbarity  of  English  warfare,  about  that 
period,  was  very  impartially  dealt  out  to  other 
nations  besides  the  Scotch  and  Irish,  who  had 
no  particular  preference.  The  French*  and 
Spaniards!  were  under  equal  obligations.  , 

*  "Twenty  days  together  did  the  lord  Talbot,  withjlre  and 
sword,  pass  through  Picardy  and  Artois,  destroying  all  that 
stood  in  his  way,  and  so  returneth  UNENCOUNTERED."240 

f  The  English,  in  their  invasion  of  Spain,  in  the  year  1566, 
committed  such  scenes  of  havoc  and  destruction,  as  would 
have  become  a  horde  of  Scythians.  "  The  town  [Cadiz]  they 
burnt,  saving  only  the  churches.  The  walls  they  battered, 
and  towers  demolished.  The  island  itself  they  burned,  razed, 
and  spoiled,  LAYING  ALL  WASTE  BEFORE  THEM,  and  leaving1 
the  rubbish  to  declare  the  ruins  -which  the  English  had  made"**1 

The  army  "  coming  to  Vigo,  found  every  street  fenced 
with  a  strong  barricado,  and  but  only  one  man  in  the  town  ; 
the  inhabitants  making  towards  Bayon,  as  fast  as  they  could 
drive.  Then  WAS  BOTH  THE  TOWN,  AND  ALL  THE  COUNTRY 

FOR  SEVEN  MILES  COMPASS,  SET  ON  A   FLAME."248      This  was 

the  polished,  refined,  and  humane  nation,  that  was  to  civilize 
the  Irish,  whom  Leland  veraciously  styles  "  savages :"  but, 
so  far  as  respected  warfare,  the  English  were  themselves 
plunged  in  the  most  savage  barbarism,  as  a  perusal  of  their 
own  writers  will  fully  evince. 

240  Daniel,  II.  140.       241  Speed,  1198.       *«  Idem,  1191. 


(     238     ) 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Representation  in  Parliament.     Fraud,  -venality, 
and  corruption  of  the  executive,  legislative,  and 
judiciary.   Rotten  boroughs.   Record  of  infamy, 
on  the  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

WE  have  fully  established  the  non-existence  of 
lord  Clarendon's  golden  age,  under  three  great 
aspects, — freedom  of  religion,  security  of  person, 
and  security  of  property.  We  have  proved  it  as 
fraudulent  and  false,  as  fraud  and  falsehood  ever 
conspired  to  make  any  portrait.  The  fourth 
general  head  remains, — a  fair  representation  in 
Parliament.  To  this  we  invite  the  reader's  at- 
tention. 

Under  a  free  and  independent  Parliament, 
Ireland  could  not  possibly  have  suffered  the  tithe 
of  the  oppressions  of  which  the  reader  has  had 
an  indistinct  bird's-eye  view ;  but  which,  at  full 
length,  would  fill  folio  volumes.  There  have 
been  countries  as  much  oppressed  as  Ireland ; 
and  tyrants  as  fell,  and  as  fierce,  and  as  rapacious 
as  the  deputies  that  swayed  the  sceptre  there. 
But  we  know  of  no  part  of  Europe  that  has 
experienced,  for  the  same  length  of  time,  that  is, 
for  six  hundred  years,  so  grinding  and  hideous  a 
despotism. 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.    239 

In  a  Parliament  correctly  constituted,  the  in- 
terests of  the  representatives  would  have  been 
so  completely  identified  with  those  of  their  con- 
stituents, that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
have  subjected  the  exercise  of  the  national  reli- 
gion to  pains  and  penalties,  at  the  will,  as  we  have 
already  said,  of  a  paltry  minority  of  two-thir- 
teenths of  the  nation,  at  most ;  or  to  have  en- 
acted any  of  those  barbarous  statutes  which  ren- 
dered the  legislation  of  Ireland,  for  centuries,  an 
object  of  abhorrence  and  detestation. 

We  shall  consider  the  subject  of  representation 
under  four  different  heads : 

I.  The  periods  of  the  meeting  of  Parliament ; 

II.  The  modes  of  election ; 

III.  The  manner  of  framing  laws  ;  and 

IV.  The  freedom  of  debate. 

And  it  cannot  fail  to  appear,  that,  in  this  re- 
spect, Ireland  was  as  flagrantly  oppressed,  as  we 
have  seen  under  the  preceding  heads. 

I.  Periods  of  Meeting. 

From  the  twenty-ninth  year  of  Elizabeth,  anno 
1587,  to  the  fifteenth  of  Charles  I.  anno  1639, 
embracing  a  period  of  fifty-two  years,  there  were 
but  two  Parliaments  held  in  Ireland ; — one  in 
1613,  under  James  I. ;  and  the  other  in  1634-5, 
under  Charles  I.243  Thus  were  the  powers  of 
legislation  wholly  suspended,  in  one  instance, 
for  twenty-six,  and  in  another  for  twenty-one 

243  Mountmorres,  II.  175. 


240  VINDICIE    HIBERNIC.E. 

yeai*s.  The  legislative  functions,  in  the  mean 
time,  were  usurped  and  abused  by  the  executive 
officers,  who  passed  acts  of  state,  which  had  all  the 
efficacy  of  acts  of  Parliament,  and  were  enforced 
by  fine  and  imprisonment,  as  we  have  already 
shown. 

From  1666  to  1692,  there  was  another  inter- 
mission of  Parliaments  in  Ireland.*  It  thus 
appears,  that  out  of  a  period  of  a  little  more  than 
a  century,  there  were  above  seventy  years  in 
which  no  Parliament  was  held.  If,  however, 
regard  be  had  to  the  mode  in  which  the  elections 
for  the  Lower  House  were  conducted,  as  shall  be 
shown  presently ;  to  the  kind  of  men  who  were 
returned ;  and  to  the  complexion  of  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  laws  they  enacted,  the  intermission 
can  hardly  be  considered  as  an  evil.  But  to  be 
freed  from  the  abomination  of  a  corrupt  legisla- 
ture, affords  no  proof  of  the  non-existence  of  the 
enormous  injustice  resulting  from  the  depriva- 
tion, for  so  long  a  period,  of  a  fair  and  honest 
representation. 

II.  Modes  of  the  election  of  members  of  the  House 

of  Commons. 

On  the  original  adjustment  of  representation 
in  a  legislative  or  deliberative  body,  it  is  fair  to 
presume,  on  every  principle  of  honour  and  ho- 

*  u  The  fatal  dissolution  [took  place]  the  7th  of  August,  1666. 
This  event  was  emphatically  fatal,  because  it  did  not  legally 
assemble,  from  this  latter  period,  in  Ireland,  till  1692  "244 
244  Mountmorres,  II.  176. 


LEPROSY   OF    IRISH   REPRESENTATION.       241 

nesty,  that  there  ought  to  be  a  reasonable  pro- 
portion observed  between  the  constituents  and 
their  representatives.  If  a  town  with  three  thou- 
sand inhabitants  has  two  representatives,  one 
with  six  thousand  ought  to  have  four.  These 
proportions,  however,  will  be  materially  changed 
by  time.  One  place  will  rise  into  consequence 
from  a  state  of  obscurity,  and  another  sink  from 
a  state  of  eminence  to  obscurity;  and  justice 
requires  that  the  representation  should  be  occa- 
sionally modified  accordingly.  But  so  many 
persons  are  interested  in  the  support  of  abuses, 
and  those  who  are  thus  interested  act  so  much 
in  concert,  that  reformation  is  at  all  times  ex- 
tremely difficult :  and  we  believe  that  in  no  coun- 
try but  the  United  States,  and  perhaps  France,  in 
some  of  the  scores  of  constitutions  which  "fretted 
their  short  hour  on  the  stage,"  during  the  French 
revolution,  has  there  ever  been  provision  made 
for  periodical  regulation  of  representation  by 
census.  Hence  the  borough  system  in  England 
has  gradually  become  the  scourge  of  that  nation, 
and  the  astonishment  and  disgust  of  the  rest  of 
the  world. 

But  the  representation  in  Ireland  had,  in  its 
origin,  all  the  leprosy  and  ulceration  which  time 
has  introduced,  in  a  succession  of  ages,  into  that 
of  England.  To  expose  its  hideous  deformity 
naked  to  the  eye  of  the  reader,  and  to  convince 
him  that  in  every  part  of  the  government  of  that 
beloved,  but  thrice-wretched  country,  Ireland, 

31 


242  VINDICI^E  HIBERNICJE. 

where  I  first  drew  my  breath,  and  whose  awful 
fate  wrings  my  heart  with  distress,  while  I  feebly 
sketch  its  wrongs,  there  was  a  systematic  outrage 
on  every  principle  of  honour,  honesty,  and  jus- 
tice, I  shall  give  him  a  view  of  the  mode  in 
which  the  elections  were  managed  in  three  Par- 
liaments :  the  two  first  in  1560  and  1568,  under 
the  "  Virgin  Queen,"  (lucus  a  non  lucendo)  and 
the  third  in  1613,  under  the  wise,  unassuming, 
profound,  and  thrice-puissant  prince,  James  L  the 
mirror  and  quintessence  of  perfection. 

In  the  first  Parliament  held  under  Elizabeth, 
the  base  means  resorted  to,  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  a  majority,  were  of  a  unique  character, 
without  previous  precedent,  or  subsequent  exam- 
ple. Writs  were  issued  to  only  ten  of  the  nine- 
teen counties  then  under  the  British  government; 
and  thus  the  remaining  nine  were  disfranchised. 
The  Parliament  was  composed  of  seventy-six 
members,  of  whom  fifty-six  were  for  towns 
and  boroughs  where  the  royal  authority  predo- 
minated :*  the  remaining  twenty  were  for  the 

*  "  In  the  House  of  Commons,  we  find  representatives  sum- 
moned for  ten  counties  only.  The  rest,  which  made  up  the 
number  seventy-six,  were  citizens  and  burgesses  of  those 
towns  in  which  the  royal  authority  was  predominant.  It  is 
therefore  little  wonder,  that,  in  spite  of  clamour  and  opposi- 
tion, in  a  session  of  a  few  weeks,  the  whole  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tem of  queen  Mary  was  entirely  reversed  by  a  series  of  sta- 
tutes, conformable  to  those  already  enacted  in  the  English 
Parliament.' ;24S 

245  Leland,  II.  272. 


FLAGITIOUS    ABUSES.  243 

counties  of  Dublin,  Meath,  Westmeath,  Louth, 
Kildare,  Catherlow,  Kilkenny,  Waterford,  Tippe- 
rary,  and  Wexford.  Cork,  Kerry,  Limerick, 
Cavan,  Clare,  Antrim,  Ardee,  Down,  and  King's 
and  Queen's  counties,  containing  probably  half 
of  the  entire  population  of  the  kingdom,  were 
wholly  unrepresented,  and  of  course  disfranchised. 
It  was  in  this  Parliament,  and  by  such  vile  fraud, 
that  the  oppressive  penal  code  against  the  Roman 
Catholics  was  enacted. 

On  this  atrocious  affair,  it  would  be  superfluous 
to  comment.  Lives  there  a  man,  with  a  spark 
of  honour  or  justice  in  his  composition,  however 
hostile  to  Ireland  or  Irishmen,  however  bigotedly 
devoted  to  England,  that  will  not  pronounce  it 
infamous  ? 

In  the  Parliament  held  in  1568,  the  election 
was  conducted  with  most  manifest  injustice.  To 
pass  over  minor  enormities,  and  condense  the 
frauds  into  the  narrowest  compass  possible,  we 
shall  confine  ourselves  to  three  species  of  flagrant 
crimes  : 

I.  Many  persons  were  returned  for  places  not 
incorporated,  and  which  of  course  had  no  right 
to  representation  ; 

II.  In  several  of  the  places  entitled  to  send 
representatives,  the  sheriffs  and  mayors  returned 
themselves ; 

III.  A  swarm  of  Englishmen  were  returned  for 
places  which  some  of  them  knew  not,  and  of 


244  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJt. 

which  none  of  them  were  residents,  although  re- 
sidence was,  by  law,  an  essential  requisite  in  a 
representative. 

In  consequence  of  these  frauds,  the  adminis- 
tration had  a  considerable  majority ;  and  elected 
Mr.  Stanihurst,  recorder  of  Dublin,  their  speaker, 
although  Sir  Christopher  Barnwell  had  a  large 
majority  of  the  votes  of  the  real  members,  those 
who  were  duly  elected.  For  a  considerable  time, 
the  latter  disputed  the  validity  of  the  votes  of 
the  intruding  impostors,  which  gave  rise  to  the 
utmost  disorder,  and  contests  that  would  have 
better  suited  with  a  bear-garden  than  a  Parlia- 
ment.* Hooker,  one  of  the  impudent  intruders, 
has  left  on  record  the  most  circumstantial  account 
of  the  affair  that  is  to  be  found ;  and,  as  the  leader 
of  the  usurpers,  endeavours  to  throw  the  whole 
guilt  of  the  dishonourable  proceeding  on  the 
members  duly  returned.!  But  it  is  impossible 

*  "  And  in  this  matter  they  showed  themselves  very  for- 
ward, and  so  unquiet  that  it  was  more  like  a  bear-baiting  of 
disorderly  persons,  than  a  Parliament  of  wise  and  grave 
men."246 

"  Their  dealings  then  were  altogether  disordered,  being 
more  like  a  bear-baiting  of  loose  persons,  than  an  assembly  of 
wise  and  grave  men  in  parliament."247 

f  "  The  next  day  following,  being  Friday,  the  lower  house 
met ;  and,  contrary  to  the  order  of  that  house,  and  duty  of 
that  company,  instead  of  unity,  there  began  a  disunion ;  and 
for  concord,  discord  was  received.  For  all,  or  the  most  part 

246  Hollinshed,  VI.  344.  «'  Idem,  345. 


A   PLAIN    ANALOGY.  245 

to  read  even  his  account,  varnished  as  it  is  with 
false  glosses,  without  being  satisfied  that  the 
crime  rested  on  him  and  his  accomplices.  As 
well  might  a  band  of  ruffians  or  burglars,  forcing 
themselves  into  a  man's  house,  with  a  view  to 
robbery  or  murder,  charge  the  owner,  who  en- 
deavoured to  save  himself,  his  family  and  pro- 
perty, with  the  crime  of  the  affray,  and  its  con- 
sequences, if  bloodshed  ensued,  as  a  riotous  rab- 
ble of  strangers,  who,  in  violation  not  merely  of 
honour  and  justice,  but  of  the  express  law  of  the 
land,  had  polluted  the  sanctuary  of  legislation  by 
a  forcible  entry,  could  make  the  legal  representa- 
tives of  the  nation  responsible  for  their  crime. 

of  the  knights  and  burgesses  of  the  English  Pale,  especially 
they  who  dwelled  within  the  counties  of  Meath  and  Dublin, 
who,  seeing  a  great  number  of  Englishmen  to  have  place  in 
that  house,  began  to  except  against  that  assembly  as  not  good, 
nor  warranted  by  law.  Their  avantparler  was  Sir  Christopher 
Barnwell,  knight;  who  being  somewhat  learned,  his  credit 
was  so  much  the  more,  and  by  them  thought  meetest  and 
worthy  to  have  been  the  speaker  of  that  house  :  and  he,  being 
the  spokesman,  alleged  three  special  causes,  why  he  and  his 
complices  would  not  yield  their  consents. 

"  The  first  was,  because  that  there  were  certain  burgesses 
returned  for  sundry  towns  which  were  not  corporate,  and  had 
no  voice  in  the  Parliament. 

"  The  second  was,  that  certain  sheriffs,  and  certain  mayors 
of  towns  corporate,  had  returned  themselves. 

"  The  third  and  chiefest  was,  that  a  number  of  Englishmen 
were  returned  to  be  burgesses  of  such  towns  and  corporations 
as  which  some  of  them  never  knew,  and  none  at  all  were 
residing  and  dwelling  in  the  same,  according  as  by  the  law  is 
required."™ 

248  Hollinshed,  VI.  342. 


24(5  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

Tlie  business  of  the  legislature  being  impeded 
by  these  furious  contests,  it  was  agreed  to  refer 
the  matter  in  dispute  to  the  judges.  This  afforded 
but  a  miserable  chance  of  redress  for  the  Irish 
nation,  as  these  functionaries  were  removable 
at  the  pleasure  of  the  crown,  and  of  course  sub- 
servient to  its  views.  However,  the  profligacy 
of  the  proceedings  was  fully  established  ;  for  the 
judges,  corrupt  and  biassed  as  they  were,  admit- 
ted the  existence  of  the  three  enormous  species 
of  offence  alleged  by  the  minority.*  They  de- 
cided that  two  of  the  classes  of  usurpers  should 
be  expelled  the  Parliament, — 

I.  Those  who  were  returned  for  towns  not 
incorporated ; 

II.  Those  magistrates  who  had  returned  them- 
selves. 

But  they  profligately  gave  their  opinion,  that 
those  who  were  returned  for  towns  where  they 

*  The  judges,  having  "  discoursed  and  conferred  of  this 
matter,  returned  their  answers  ;  that  concerning  the  first  and 
second  exceptions,  that  the  burgesses  returned  from  towns  not 
corporate,  and  for  such  sheriffs,  mayors,  and  sovereigns,  as 
have  returned  themselves,  shall  be  dismissed  out  of  the  same ; 
but  as  for  such  others  as  the  sheriffs  and  mayors  had  return- 
ed, they  should  remain,  and  the  penalty  to  rest  upon  the  she- 
riff's for  their  -wrong  returns"™ 

"  The  same  was  so  stomached,  that  the  placing  of  the  Eng- 
lishmen, to  be  knights  and  burgesses,  could  not  be  digested, 
as  did  appear  in  the  sequel  of  that  assembly,  where  every  bill 
furthered  by  the  English  gentlemen,  was  stopped  and  hindered 
by  them."250 

249  Hollinshed,  VI.  348.  25°  Ibid. 


PROSTITUTION    OF    THE    BENCH.  247 

did  not  reside,  should  retain  their  seats ;  and  that 
the  penalty  of  the  false,  illegal  returns  should  be 
paid  by  the  sheriffs. 

The  third  class  being  more  numerous  than  the 
other  two,  and  being  secured  in  their  usurpa- 
tion by  this  iniquitous  decision,  the  government 
still  possessed  a  majority ;  and  was  of  course 
enabled  to  carry  whatever  measures  it  thought 
proper ;  and  thus  a  few  needy  and  dependent 
Englishmen,  who  probably  had  not  an  acre  of 
land  in  the  island,  were  virtually  its  legislators. 
Let  us,  however,  do  lord  Clarendon  the  justice  to 
state,  that  this  dishonourable  affair  occurred  pre- 
vious to  his  millenium.  His  mistakes  and  false- 
hoods are  sufficiently  numerous,  without  unjustly 
increasing  them. 

What  a  shameful  prostitution  of  the  dignity  of 
the  bench !  What  an  unanswerable  proof  that 
venality  *and  corruption  had  spread  throughout 
every  department  of  the  state,  poisoned  all  the 
sources  of  justice,  and  that  all  were  leagued 
in  the  grand  work  of  oppressing  the  wretched 
Irish  !  A  law,  founded  in  reason,  common  sense, 
justice,  and  honesty,  declared  that  every  borough, 
or  town,  or  city,  should  be  represented  by  a 
resident,  who  would  know  its  situation,  feel  its 
wants,  plead  its  cause,  rise  with  its  prosperity, 
and  sink  with  its  fall.  A  horde  of  hungry  Eng- 
lishmen, in  violation  of  the  law,  are  returned  to 
represent  places  they  never  saw:  a  profligate 
Parliament  applies  to  a  prostitute  bench,  to  de- 


248  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

cide  the  question  whether  a  remedy  shall  be 
applied  to  this  illegal  proceeding :  it  decides 
that  these  intruders  and  usurpers  shall  maintain 
their  seats,  but  that  those  who  returned  them 
shall  pay  the  penalty  of  the  infraction  of  the  law  ! 
What  a  mockery  !  Suppose  a  fine  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  were  laid  on  those  officers, 
which  would  go  into  the  treasury, — suppose  they 
were  imprisoned  for  life, — suppose  they  were 
hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered;  what  compen- 
sation would  be  afforded  to  the  towns  robbed  of 
then-  representation,  or  to  the  nation  cheated 
with  such  a  fraudulent  legislature  ? 

These  proceedings,  and  the  opinion  of  the 
judges,  afford  an  ample  field  for  consideration. 
They  exhibit  another  feature  of  the  hideous  op- 
pression which  their  rulers  exercised  over  the 
ill-fated  Irish.  I  have  already  more  than  once 
endeavoured  to  force  these  subjects  on  the  minds 
of  American  readers,  by  applying  the  cases  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Let  us  suppose  that  the 
sheriff  of  Philadelphia  city,  instead  of  allowing 
the  citizens  to  vote  for  two  members  of  congress, 
were  to  elect  himself  and  his  deputy  ;  that  Frank- 
ford,  and  Bustleton,  and  Holmesburg,  and  Ches- 
ter, and  Darby,  and  Marcus  Hook,  and  Point- 
no-Point  were  to  send  each  two  members  to 
congress ;  and,  finally,  that  a  host  of  newly- 
arrived  citizens  of  Kentucky  should  be  chosen  to 
represent  some  of  our  towns  or  counties,  which 
they  had  never  seen.  This  "  blessed  condition  of 


FLAGRANT   INJUSTICE.  249 

peace  and  security"  would  make  the  "  swords  of 
our  citizens  leap  from  their  scabbards,"  to  avail 
myself  of  the  heroics  of  my  countryman  Burke. 
In  the  Parliament  held  anno  1613,  under 
James  T.  the  proceedings  were  at  least  as  flagiti- 
ous. The  whole  number  of  boroughs  represent- 
ed, previous  to  that  period,  was  thirty  ;  but  for 
this  Parliament,  in  order  to  secure  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority,  there  were  forty  new  boroughs 
created,  every  one.  of  them  in  places  where  the 
government  had  decided  influence,  and  nearly  the 
whole  in  shabby,  contemptible  hamlets,*  which 
had  not  the  least  claim  to  a  representation.!  The 
chief  part  of  these  boroughs  were  incorporated 
previous  to  issuing  the  writs  foi;  the  election; 
but  with  a  most  hardened  and  profligate  disre- 
gard of  even  the  forms  of  justice,  many  of  them 

*  "A  number  of  new  boroughs,  most  of  them  inconsiderable, 
and  many  of  them  too  poor  to  afford  wages  to  their  representa- 
tives, must  be  entirely  influenced  by  the  government,  and 
must  return  its  immediate  creatures  and  dependents.  Such  an 
accession  of  power  could  not  fail  to  encourage  the  administra- 
tion to  act  without  reserve,  and  pursue  the  dictates  of  its  pas- 
sions and  resentments."351 

f  The  petition  of  the  lords  to  king  James,  states  the  existence 
of  "  a  fearful  suspicion,  that  the  project  of  erecting  so  many 
corporations  in  places  that  can  scantly  pass  the  rank  of  the 
poorest  villages  in  the  poorest  country  in  Christendom,  do  tend 
to  nought  else,  at  this  time,  but  that,  by  the  voices  of  a  few, 
selected  for  the  purpose,  extreme  penal  laws  should  be  imposed 
upon  your  subjects  here."258 

251  Leland,  II.  519.  252  Idem,  521. 

32 


250  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

were  incorporated  after  the  writs  had  been  is- 
sued.* Sir  John  Davies  feebly  attempts  to  pal- 
liate this  outrage  on  justice  ;f  but  with  pretty 
much  the  same  success  as  attended  his  elaborate 
vindication  of  the  Ulster  spoliation. 

But,  abandoned  as  was  this  system,  it  did  not 
comprise  one-half  of  the  injustice  or  wickedness 
of  the  election.  The  same  course  was  pursued 
as  in  the  preceding  Parliament.  Many  non-resi- 
dent Englishmen  were  returned ;  some  of  the 
judges  returned  themselves ;  and  a  number  of 
wretched  outlaws  completed  the  list  of  the  mem- 
bers of  that  House  of  Commons  which  attainted 
Tyrone  and  Tyrconnel. 

*  "  The  deputy  continued  to  increase  the  new  boroughs  to 
the  number  of  forty  y  of  which  several  were  not  incorporated, 
until  the  writs  for  summoning  a  Parliament  had  already 
Issued."** 

f  "  His  majesty  hath  most  graciously  and  justly  created 
divers  new  boroughs,  in  sundry  parts  of  the  kingdom."254 

"  Certainly  the  number  of  these  new  boroughs,  compared 
with  the  counties  that  never  had  any  burgesses  before  this 
time,  doth  carry  a  less  proportion  than  the  ancient  boroughs, 
compared  with  the  number  of  the  ancient  counties ;  for  in 
those  twelve  or  thirteen  old  shires,  there  are  thirty  cities  and 
boroughs,  at  least,  which  send  citizens  and  burgesses  to  the 
Parliament.  Whereas,  for  seventeen  counties  at  large,  being 
more  than  half  the  shires  of  this  kingdom,  which  had  not  one 
borough  in  them  before  this  new  erection,  his  majesty  hath 
now  lately  erected  BUT  FORTY  NEW  BOROUGHS,  or 
thereabouts,  which,  in  the  judgment  of  all  indifferent  men, 
must  needs  seem  reasonable,  just,  and  honourable."255 

253  Leland,  II.  522.        254  Davies,  3O4.        255  Idem,  306. 


FLAGRANT   INJUSTICE.  251 

To  heighten  the  wickedness  of  the  proceed- 
ings, in  imitation  of  the  vile  example  set  under 
the  "Virgin  Queen,"  no  writs  were  issued  to 
sundry  ancient  boroughs,  which,  from  their  popu- 
lation and  cliarters,  were  entitled  to  representa- 
tives.* 

Notwithstanding  all  these  shameless  and  aban- 
doned frauds,  the  administration  had  not  a  large 
majority.  Their  usurping  minions  and  parasites 
were  only  an  hundred  and  twenty-five,  and  the 
opposition  party  were  an  hundred  and  one  :  there 
were  six  absent  members,  whose  politics  are 
not  known.f  It  is  easy  to  conceive  what  a  de- 
cided majority  the  recusants  would  have  had,  but 
for  the  profligate  disregard  of  every  semblance  of 
honour  and  justice,  which,  during  the  election, 
had  governed  the  proceedings  of  the  enemies  of 
Irish  happiness  and  prosperity. 

In  consequence  of  those  enormous  abuses,  the 
real  representatives  of  the  nation  were  out-num- 
bered ;  and  this  motley  majority  forced  Sir  John 

*  "  It  was  asserted  by  them,  in  support  of  their  opposition, 
that  the  sheriffs  had  sent  no  -writs  to  several  of  the  boroughs  ; 
thatyrom  others,  the  returns  -would  not  be  received;  that  most 
of  the  patents  and  charters  of  the  new  boroughs  were  dated  af- 
ter the  commissions  for  the  writs  -were  issued.256 

f  "  Two  hundred  and  thirty-two  members  had  been  re- 
turned :  six  were  absent.  Of  the  remainder,  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  were  Protestants ;  and  one  hundred  and  one 
formed  the  recusant  party."257 

256  Crawford,  I.  346.  2i7  Leland,  II.  523. 


252  VINDICIJE  HIBERNIC.E. 

Davies  into  the  chair,  as  speaker,  although  Sir 
John  Everard  had  a  great  majority  of  the  legal 
votes. 

The  real  representatives  of  the  people  made  a 
struggle  as  ardent,  but  as  ineffectual,  as  had  taken 
place  in  1568.  They  were  baffled  by  the  address, 
overcome  by  the  power,  and  compelled  to  yield 
to  the  wicked  views,  of  a  most  profligate  govern- 
ment :  and  the  true  state  of  the  proceedings  is 
recorded  in  the  Journals,  in  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  is  an  open  and  undisguised  confession 
of  the  infamy  of  the  majority,  and  of  the  admi- 
nistration by  whom  they  were  supported  : 

"  Nov.  19,  1613,  It  was  resolved  by  the  house  of  commons, 
That  whereas  some  persons  have  been  unduly  elected,  some 
being  judges,  some  for  not  being  estated  in  their  boroughs^ 
some  for  being  OUTLAWED,  excommunicated;  and  lastly,  for 
being  returned  for  places  -whose  charters  were  not  valid;  it  was 
resolved  not  to  question  them  for  the  present,  in  order  to  pre- 
vent stopping  public  business  ;  but  this  resolution  was  not  to 
be  drawn  into  precedent."258 

"  On  the  24th  November,  1614,  the  order  of  the  last  session 
was  renewed,  verbatim,  relative  to  postponing  inquiries  into 
the  returns  of  members,  &c.  who  were  disqualified,  as  judges, 
as  being  outlawed,  &c.  or  returned  for  places  which  had  no 
charters."2*9 

The  lords  and  commons,  seeing  their  rights 
thus  daringly  trampled  under  foot,  the  law  of 
the  land  shamefully  violated,  and  the  legislation 
of  the  nation  virtually  thrown  into  the  hands  of 
a  greedy  and  devouring  horde  of  strangers,  sent 

258  Mountmorres,  I.  169.  259  Idem,  173. 


FLAGRANT   INJUSTICE.  253 

commissioners  to  the  court  of  king  James,  to 
petition  him  for  redress  :  but  they  were  treated 
with  insult  and  outrage.  Two  of  them  were, 
under  some  frivolous  pretence,  thrown  into  pri- 
son,* for  alleged  insolence  of  conduct ;  the  case 
was  referred  to  the  British  Privy  Council  ;f  and 
they  were  dismissed  with  an  impertinent,  frothy, 
bombastic  speech  from  the  royal  pedant,  full  of 
verbiage  that  would  have  disgraced  a  school-boy. 
The  discussion  of  such  wickedness  cannot  fail 
to  be  to  the  last  degree  painful  to  the  reader,  as  it 
is  to  the  writer.  It  harasses  and  tears  the  feelings 
with  violence.  What  a  hideous  prostitution  of 
every  thing  honest,  fair,  just,  or  correct,  it  would 
be,  were  the  governors  of  New  York  and  Penn- 
sylvania, for  the  purpose  of  overwhelming  the 
vote  of  the  capitals  of  these  two  states,  to  incor- 
porate, in  the  one  instance,  Chesnuthill  and  Log- 
town,  and,  in  the  other,  Bergen  and  Flatbush, 
and  allow  each  of  these  places  an  equal  number 

*  "  It  seemed  no  auspicious  incident  to  the  Irish  agents, 
that  Talbot  and  Luttrel,  for  some  late  or  present  insolence  of 
conduct,  -were  committed  prisoners,  one  to  the  tower,  the  other 
to  the  fleet."260 

f  "  In  flagrant  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, he  referred  the  final  determination  of  it  to  the  English 
Privy  Council.  Their  decision  was,  that  several  of  the  re- 
turns were  illegal."261 

"  The  members  returned  from  those  boroughs  which  were 
created  AFTER  THE  WRITS  HAD  BEEN  ALREADY  ISSUED,  were, 
for  the  present,  declared  incapable  of  sitting."262 

260  Leland,  II.  529.  M1  Crawford,  I.  346. 

268  Leland,  II.  531. 


254  VlNDlCIjE   HIBERNICJE. 

of  representatives  with  the  respective  capitals, 
thus  enabling  Chesnuthill  and  Logtown,  by  a 
majority  of  two  to  one,  to  outvote  Philadelphia, 
and  making  the  same  distribution  in  New  York  ! 
There  is  something  so  wicked  in  this  pro- 
cedure, such  a  mockery  of  even  the  slightest 
shadow  of  justice,  that  it  excites  loathing  and 
abhorrence.  The  idea  of  elevating  the  political 
balance,  and  throwing  Dublin,  Waterford,  Cork, 
and  Galway  into  one  scale,  and  Glassnevin,  the 
Black-rock,  Clontarf,  Dunleary,  and  Donnybrook, 
or  any  places  equally  insignificant,  into  the  other, 
and  suffering  those  five  hamlets,  with  perhaps  an 
hundred  inhabitants,  to  outnumber  the  votes  of 
four  great  cities,  and  of  course  to  make  laws  to 
bind  the  estates  of  the  natives,  and  subject  them 
to  pains  and  penalties  for  the  worship  of  God,  is 
inexpressibly  wicked.  This  was,  however,  the 
precise  state  of  the  representation  of  Ireland, 
during  lord  Clarendon's  millenium,  and  from  the 
time  of  the  Conquest,  as  it  has  been  styled. 

III.  House  of  Lords. 

Against  the  corruption  and  profligacy  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  House  of  Lords  might 
have  afforded  some  security :  but  here  the  wicked 
arts  of  the  government  triumphed,  and  equally 
trampled  under  foot  every  principle  of  honour, 
honesty,  and  justice.  In  every  potion,  calculated 
to  heal  the  wounds  or  alleviate  the  distresses  of 
Ireland,  there  was  always  infused  a  deleterious 


FREEDOM    OP    DEBATE.  255 

drug,  whose  admixture  transformed  it  into 
poison.  To  secure  a  majority  in  the  Upper 
House,  Irish  titles  were  granted  to  English  no- 
blemen, destitute  of  a  single  acre  of  land  in  Ire- 
land.* v  They  never  appeared  in  Parliament ;  but 
confided  their  proxies  to  the  minions  of  the 
government, — three,  four,  or  five  to  one  peer : 

"  Twenty-nine  proxies  were  entered^  four  and  five  to  one 
lord;  which  was  a  scheme  of  lord  Strafford's.  But  this  abuse 
was  soon  afterwards  corrected,  by  a  standing  order,  that  rib 
more  than  two  should  be  given  to  one  lord."263 

Thus  six  of  these  men  of  straw,  not  owning 
together  a  single  farm,  could  out-vote  the  duke 
of  Ormond,  and  the  earls  of  Kildare,  Castlehaven, 
Clanrickarde,  and  Fingal,  who,  united,  possessed 
probably  above  a  million  ! 

IV.   Freedom  of  Debate. 

But  all  these  wise  and  salutary  precautions  to 
guard  against  the  "insolence  of  the  recusants" 
were  not  deemed  sufficient.  If  the  members  at 
any  time  dared  to  use  the  privilege  of  debate  so 
as  to  offend  the  deputy  or  Privy  Council,  there 
were  ready  and  adequate  means  of  bringing 
them  to  their  senses.  There  were  very  conve- 

*  "  The  principal  grievances  were  concerning  proxies  for 
those  peers  who  had  no  estates  in  Ireland"  &c.264 

"  The  subsequent  order  contains  a  representation  to  his 
.majesty,  that  peers  not  estated  in  Ireland  should  not  be  allowed 
to  vote."265 

263  Mountmorres,  I.  321.      264  Idem,  344.      265  Idem,  343. 


256  VINDICUE    HIBERNICJE. 

nient  apartments  in  the  jail,  for  their  accommo- 
dation ;  and  a  few  weeks'  solitary  confinement 
was  an  excellent  specific  for  teaching  them 
politeness : 

u  The  same  day,  [Nov.  4,  1634]  the  lord  deputy  Went- 
worth  communicated  an  act  of  council,  for  CONFINING  AND 
IMPRISONING  SIR  JOHN  DUNGAN  AND  CAPTAIN  CHARLES 
PRICE,  FOR  WORDS  SPOKEN  IN  PARLIAMENT  !"266 

On  another  occasion,  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  who  had  a  seat  in  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, and  who  dared  to  vote  against  the  dictum  of 
the  bashaw  Wentworth,  was  punished  by  being 
expelled  from  the  Council-Board.  This  whole- 
some and  "apparent  severity"  was  admirably 
calculated,  in  terrorem,  for  any  other  members 
who  might  venture  to  take  the  same  course : 

Sir  Piers  Crosby,  "  in  the  second  session  of  the  late  Par- 
liament, ventured  to  oppose  some  measures  of  administration. 
The  deputy  reprimanded  and  accused  him  of  a  violation  of 
his  oath,  in  voting  against  bills  to  which  he  had  assented  in 
Council,  and  concurred  in  transmitting  them.  Crosby  was 
sequestered  from  the  Council-Board.  He  complained  of  the 
severity,  by  petition.  He  desired  license  to  repair  to  England. 

IT  WAS  REFUSED."26* 

The  reader  will  probably  be  startled  at  the 
fact  of  the  refusal  of  license  to  repair  to  England. 
But  such  was  the  real  state  of  the  case.  No  man 
in  public  employment  could  leave  the  kingdom, 
even  to  repair  to  the  court  of  the  British  mo- 
narch, without  license  obtained  from  his  deputy, 

266  Mountmorres,  II.  1O.  *67  Leland,  III.  39. 


PRO-CONSULAR    DESPOTISM.  257 

which  was  never  granted  to  characters  obnoxious 
to  him,  who  might  seek  an  opportunity  to  expose 
his  misdeeds. 

The  case  of  Sir  Piers  is  strong  and  striking. 
His  standing  in  society  was  high  ;,as  he  was  a 
soldier  of  distinguished  merit,  and  had  acquired 
great  reputation  in  the  expedition  to  the  coast  of 
France,  where  he  had  been  the  principal  means 
of  preserving  the  English  army  in  their  retreat.268 
His  sole  offence,  as  above  stated,  was  voting 
against  an  act  proposed  by  the  Privy  Council. 
If  the  merits  of  such  a  man  could  not  secure  him 
from  the  degradation  inflicted  merely  for  the 
independent  discharge  of  his  duty  as  a  member 
of  the  legislature,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  the  slavish 
and  abject  state  in  which  those  members  were 
generally  held,  who  had  no  such  claims  to  atten- 
tion as  belonged  to  the  knight.  His  removal 
from  the  Privy  Council  Board  took  place  by  the 
express  direction  of  the  king,  on  the  representa- 
tion of  Wentworth.* 

This  is  a  strong  instance,  in  addition  to  those 
already  given,  of  the  fixed  determination  of  the 
"  royal  martyr"  to  uphold  his  worthy  representa- 
tive, in  all  his  flagitious  proceedings.  He  thereby 
rendered  himself  amenable,  in  the  eye  of  the 
Eternal  and  Just  God,  for  all  the  long  course  of 

*  "  On  the  representations  of  Wentworth,  his  majesty  di- 
rected him  to  be  removed  from  the  Privy  Council"* 

™  Leland,  III.  39.  ™  Ibid. 

33 


258  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

oppression,  injustice,  fraud,  rapine,  and  violence, 
perpetrated  by  his  minister,  who,  in  his  persecu- 
tion of  lord  Mountnorris,  lord  Ely,  lord  St.  Al- 
bans,  Piers  Crosby,  and  others,  as  well  as  in  his 
Connaught  spoliation,  violated  every  rule  of 
honour,  justice,  and  humanity.  Charles  not  only 
did  not  discountenance  any  even  of  his  worst 
proceedings,  but  absolutely  encouraged  him  in 
them.  After  all  his  enormities  were  perpetrated. 
Wentworth  went  to  London,  presented  himself  at 
court,  and  entered  into  a  full  detail  of  the  whole 
course  of  conduct  he  had  pursued.  The  unfeel- 
ing monarch  expressed  the  most  decided  appro- 
bation : 

"  His  majesty  interrupted  me,  and  said  this  was  no  severi- 
ty ;  wished  me  to  go  on  in  that  way  ;  for  if  I  served  him 
otherways,  I  should  not  serve  him  as  he  expected  from  me. 

"  His  majesty  was  pleased  to  express  his  approbation  of  all 
I  had  done ;  and  their  lordships  to  advise  I  should  go  on  in  a 
work  so  well  begun  ;  and  that  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
the  best  service  had  been  done  this  crown  in  Ireland.  So  I 
kneeled  down,  and  kissed  the  king's  hand,  and  the  council 
rose.'1270 

The  tyranny  of  the  deputy,  and  the  slavery  of 
the  legislature,  were  observable  in  every  part  of 
their  proceedings.  Not  to  exhaust  the  patience 
of  the  reader,  we  shall  close  with  one  more  in- 
stance. Wentworth  had,  by  the  most  outrageous 
injustice,  succeeded  in  carrying  the  election,  in 
Dublin,  in  favour  of  the  recorder  of  the  city,  one 
Cateline,  who,  the  deputy  was  determined,  should 

270  Carte,  III.  11. 


PRO-CONSULAR    DESPOTISM.  259 

be  chosen  speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Understanding  that  tne  members  of  that  House 
contemplated  choosing  some  other  person,  the 
insolent  satrap  was  quite  exasperated  ;  and  des- 
patched the  chancellor  to  them,  with  a  mandate 
menacing  his  displeasure,  if  they  should  choose 
as  speaker  any  other  than  the  person  "recom- 
mended by  his  majesty's  Privy  Council,"  which, 
at  all  events,  would  be  utterly  in  vain,  as  "  the 
conclusion  must  be  according  to  his  majesty's 
good  will  and  pleasure."*  His  arbitrary  power, 
imperious  temper,  and  unrelenting  disposition, 
were  too  well  known,  and  the  awe  felt  for  him 
was  too  great,  to  admit  of  hesitation.  His  sove- 
reign will  and  pleasure  were  therefore  as  com- 
pletely the  law  in  this  instance,  as  the  dictum  of 
the  emperor  of  Morocco  in  his  capital. 

*  "  And  as  I  understood  there  was  a  muttering  among  them 
of  rejecting  him,  and  choosing  some  other  for  themselves,  I 
called  the  lord  chancellor  to  me,  and  directed  him  to  require 
them  forthwith  to  assemble  themselves  in  their  house,  and 
to  choose  their  speaker,  who  was  to  be  presented  to  me  by 
nine  o'clock  the  next  morning ;  telling  them  it  was  not  -worth 
their  contention,  and  that  it  would  be  taken  as  an  ill  presage 
of  some  waywardness  or  frowardness  of  mind,  if  they  should 
go  about  to  deny  such  for  their  speaker,  as  should  be  recom- 
mended by  his  majesty'' s  Privy  Council;  or  to  struggle  in  a 
business  wherein  the  conclusion  of  it  must  be  according  to  his 
•majesty's  goodrvill  and  pleasure,  whether  they  will  or  no.  So 
they  departed ;  and  before  dinner,  without  any  noise  or  oppo- 
sition at  all,  they  chose  the  recorder  for  their  speaker."271 

271  Strafford,  apud  Curry,  I.  127. 


260  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

V.  Mode  of  framing  laws. 

In  this  respect,  as  in  every  other  in  which  we 
have  viewed  the  case  of  unfortunate  Ireland,  her 
situation  was  to  the  last  degree  slavish,  and  the 
tyranny  of  England  intolerable. 

In  a  venal  and  corrupt  Parliament,  packed  in 
the  same  manner  as  those  three  Parliaments,  held 
in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  which  we 
have  mentioned,  Sir  Edward  Poynings,  then  de- 
puty, had  a  law  passed  which  wholly  destroyed 
the  legislative  power  in,  Ireland;  reduced  her 
Parliament  nearly  to  a  level  with  a  bed  of  justice 
in  France;  limited  its  operations  to  the  mere 
enregisterment  or  rejection  of  edicts ;  and  left 
it  but  a  bare  negative  power  of  rejecting,*  not 
of  proposing,  any  law.f 

*  "  A  set  of  statutes  were  enacted,  in  the  10th  Henry 
VII.  (Sir  Edward  Poynings  being  then  lord  deputy,  from 
whence  they  were  called  Poynings'  laws)  which  restrained  the 
power,  as  well  of  the  deputy,  as  of  the  Parliament :  and  in 
time  there  was  nothing  left  to  the  Parliament  of  Ireland,  but 
a  bare  negative,  or  power  of  rejecting,  NOT  OF  PROPOS- 
ING, ANY  LAW.'1272 

f  "  This  day  [August  2, 1634]  was  remarkable  for  a  dispute 
between  the  lords  and  the  lord  deputy,  about  the  framing  of 
acts ;  which  right,  by  Poynings'  law,  he  contended,  was  in 
himself  and  the  council  only  ;  and  Parliament  had  only  poiver 
to  prefer  a  petition  to  them  for  that  purpose :  and  lord  Straf- 
ford  entered  a  memorable  protest,  upon  this  occasion,  in  the 
Journals."273 

272  Jacobs,  III.  534.  273  Mountmorres,  I.  323. 


TYRANNY  OF  FREE  GOVERNMENTS.    261 

By  another  law,  passed  during  the  administra- 
tion of  the  same  satrap,  all  the  laws  previously 
existing  in  England,  were,  at  one  stroke,  made 
of  force  within  the  kingdom  of  Ireland.* 

And,  subsequently  to  this  period,  Ireland,  with- 
out a  single  representative  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, was  always  subject  to  the  operation  of  all 
the  British  statutes,  in  which  she  "  was  specially 
named  or  included  under  general  words."274 

If  the  experience  of  the  world  did  not  afford 
numberless  instances  to  prove,  that  those  nations, 
which  are  the  most  jealous  assertors  of  their  own 
liberties,  are  the  most  consummate  tyrants  over 
subordinate  nations,  it  would  be  matter  of  aston- 
ishment that  England,  which,  at  various  periods 
of  her  history,  had  lavished  so  much  blood  and 
treasure,  in  defence  of  her  own  rights  and  free- 
dom, should  have  so  uniformly  violated  every 
principle,  not  merely  of  liberty,  but  of  justice,  in 
her  treatment  of,  and  displayed  such  wanton 
tyranny  towards,  Ireland.  The  case  of  these 
two  nations  affords  a  most  felicitous  illustration 
of  the  judicious  and  profound  remark  of  Hume, 
that  it  may  be  regarded  as  "  a  fixed  maxim,"  that 
w  though  free  governments  have  been  commonly 
the  most  happy  for  those  who  partake  of  their 

*  "  It  was  enacted,  by  another  of  Poynings'  laws,  that  all 
acts  of  Parliament,  before  that  time  made  in  Eingland,  should 
be  of  force  within  the  kingdom  of  Ireland.'"275 

274  Jacobs,  III.  534.  27J  Ibid. 


262  VINDICUE  HIBERNICJE. 

freedom;  yet  ARE  THEY  THE  MOST  RUIN- 
OUS AND  OPPRESSIVE  TO  THEIR  PRO- 
VINCES."276 

From  Parliaments  constituted  in  the  manner 
we  have  detailed,  few  measures  were  to  be  hoped 
for,  but  what  were  fraught  with  destruction  to 
the  happiness  of  Ireland.  Majorities  were  gene- 
rally secured  in  both  houses,  whose  interests 
were  in  direct  hostility  with  the  best  interests  of 
the  nation :  and,  in  consequence,  a  large  portion 
of  their  legislation  has  been  an  almost  invariable 
tissue  of  outrage  upon  every  principle  of  political 
economy,  honour,  honesty,  and  good  faith. 

"  The  mere  Irish  were  not  only  accounted  aliens,  but  ene- 
mies, and  altogether  out  of  the  protection  of  the  law  ;  so  as 
IT  WAS  NO  CAPITAL  OFFENCE  TO  KILL 
THEM."277 

"  Our  law  did  neither  protect  his  [the  Irishman's]  life,  nor 
revenge  his  death."2™ 

"  As  long  as  they  were  out  of  the  protection  of  the  law,  so 
as  EVERY  ENGLISHMAN  MIGHT  OPPRESS,  SPOIL,  AND  KILL 
THEM,  WITHOUT  CONTROUL,  how  was  it  possible  they  could 
be  other  than  outlaws  and  enemies  of  the  crown  of  ^England? 
If  the  king  would  not  admit  them  to  the  condition  of  subjects, 
how  could  they  learn  to  obey  him  as  their  sovereign  ?  When 
they  might  not  converse  or  commerce  with  any  civil  man,  nor 
enter  into  any  town  or  city,  without  peril  of  their  lives,  whither 
should  they  fly  but  into  the  woods  and  mountains,  and  there 
live  in  a  wild  and  barbarous  manner  ?'1379 

Of  the  barbarous  code  of  laws  which  disgraced 
the  Irish  Statute-Book,  we  shall  notice  a  few. 

276  Hume's  Essays,  I.  47.  277  Davies,  82. 

278  Idem,  84,  2™  Idem,  90. 


DECAPITATION   WITHOUT    TRIAL.  263 

By  one  law,  marriage  or  fosterage  with  the 
natives  was  made  treason.* — a  law  tending  to 
render  eternal  the  hostility,  and  spread  wide  the 
devastation  and  horrors  of  warfare,  between  the 
aboriginals  and  the  English  colonists, — a  law,  in 
a  word,  of  the  most  dire  and  baleful  tendency. 

By  a  law  made  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IV. 
it  was  enacted,  that  any  Englishman,  meeting  an 
Irishman  robbing,  or  going  to  rob,  or  coming  from 
robbing,  unless  he  had  an  Englishman  in  his 
company,  might  kill  him,  and  cut  off  his  head, 
WITHOUT  TRIAL  ;f  and,  on  bringing  the  head  to 

*  "  By  divers  heavy  penalties,  the  English  were  forbidden  to 
marry,  to  foster,  to  make  gossips  with  the  Irish,  or  to  have 
any  commerce  in  their  markets  or  fairs :  nay,  there  was  a  law 
made,  no  longer  since  than  the  28th  Henry  VIII.  that  the 
English  should  not  marry  with  any  person  of  Irish  blood, 
though  he  had  gotten  a  charter  of  denization,  unless  he  had 
done  both  homage  and  fealty  to  the  king  in  the  chancery,  and 
were  also  bound  by  recognizance,  with  sureties,  to  continue  a 
loyal  subject.  Whereby  it  is  manifest,  that  such  as  had  the 
government  of  Ireland,  under  the  crown  of  England,  did  in- 
tend to  make  A  PERPETUAL  SEPARATION  AND 
ENMITY  between  the  English  and  the  Irish,  pretending,  no 
doubt,  that  THE  ENGLISH  SHOULD,  IN  THE  END, 
ROOT  OUT  THE  IRISH."280 

f  "  It  shall  be  lawful  to  all  manner  of  men  that  find  any 
thieves  robbing  by  day  or  by  night,  or  going  or  coining  to  rob 
or  steal,  in  or  out,  going  or  coming,  having  no  faithful  man  of 
good  name  and  fame  in  their  company,  in  English  appareJ, 
upon  any  of  the  liege  people  of  the  king,  to  take  and  kill  them, 
and  TO  CUT  OFF  THEIR  HEADS,  -without  ami  impear/i- 

280  Davies,  86. 


264  VINDICLE  UIBERNICJE: 

the  portrief  of  the  town,  he  was  further  author- 
ized to  levy  "  with  his  own  hands,"  and  those  of 
his  aiders  in  the  murder,  two  pence  for  every 
plough  land,  one  penny  for  every  half  plough 
land,  as  well  as  for  every  house  and  property 
worth  forty  shillings.  This  act  did  not  merely 
legalize  murder,  but  offered  a  premium  for  it ; 
any  Englishman  might,  at  his  pleasure,  cut  off 
the  head  of  an  Irishman,  and  declare  that  he 
was  going  to  rob,  or  coming  from  robbing:  which 
assertions  it  was  impossible  to  disprove ;  and  a 
man,  going  to,  or  coming  from,  church,  might 
be  murdered,  on  pretence  that  he  was  going  to 
rob,  or  coming  from  robbing.  The  murderer 
could  then  levy  contributions  on  the  barony,  as 
a  remuneration  for  the  slaughter ;  and,  consider* 
ing  the  deadly  hostility  between  the  two  nations, 
and  the  slight  importance  attached  to  the  life  of 
an  Irishman,  it  is  far  from  improbable  that  hun- 
dreds of  them  were  thus  decapitated ;  and  that 
the  business  of  chopping  off  heads  was  made  as 

ment  of  our  sovereign  lord  the  king,  his  heirs,  officers,  or  mi- 
nisters, or  of  any  others. 

"  And  it  shall  be  lawful  to  the  bringer  of  the  said  head,  and 
his  aiders  to  the  same,  for  to  distrain  and  levy  by  their  own 
hands,  of  every  man  having  one  plough  land  in  the  barony 
where  the  said  thief  was  taken,  two  pence  ;  and  of  every  man 
having  half  a  plough  land,  one  penny  ;  and  of  every  man  hav- 
ing one  house,  and  goods  to  the  value  of  forty  shillings,  one 
penny ;  and  of  every  other  cottier,  having  one  house  and 
smoke,  one  half-penny."281 

281  Statutes,  21. 


IMPARTIAL   JUSTICE.  265 

regular  a  trade,  and  as  profitable  a  means  of 
subsistence,  as  in  some  countries  is  the  employ- 
ment of  shooting  wolves  or  bears. 

By  another  law,  any  man  found  within  the 
Pale,  with  the  beard  on  the  upper  lip,  which  was 
the  Irish  custom,  might  be  seized,  with  his  goods, 
as  an  Irish  enemy,  and  ransomed  as  such.* 

By  another,  every  man  was  rendered  liable  for 
the  offences  committed  by  his  son.f 

By  another,  five  of  the  best  men  of  every 
stirpe  were  obliged  to  deliver  up  all  of  their  sur- 
name charged  with  offences,  or  to  ansrverfor  the 
offences  themselves.  Of  course,  when  criminals 
escaped,  their  namesakes,  how  innocent  soever, 
underwent  the  penalty  of  their  offences.J 

*  "  No  manner  of  man,  that  will  be  taken  for  an  Englishman, 
shall  have  no  beard"  [these  two  negatives  are  in  the  statute] 
"  above  his  mouth  ;  that  is  to  say,  shall  have  no  hair  upon  his 
upper  lip ;  so  that  the  said  upper  lip  shall  be  once  at  least 
shaven  every  fortnight ;  or  of  equal  growth  with  the  nether  lip. 
And  if  any  man  be  found  among  the  English  contrary  here- 
unto, then  it  shall  be  lawful  to  every  man  to  take  them  and 
their  goods  as  Irish  enemies,  and  to  ransom  them  as  such."282 

| "  Every  man  shall  answer  for  the  offence  and  ill-doing  of 
his  son,  as  he  himself  that  did  the  trespass,  offence,  &c.  ought 
to  do."283 

^  "  Five  persons  of  the  best  of  every  stirpe  or  nation  of  the 
Irishry,  and  in  the  countries  that  be  not  yet  shire  grounds,  and 
till  they  be  shire  grounds,  shall  be  bound  to  bring  in,  to  be 
justified  by  law,  all  idle  persons  of  their  surname  which  shall 
be  charged  with  any  offence ;  or  else  satisfy,  of  their  own 
proper  goods,  the  hurts  by  them  committed  to  the  parties 

232  Statutes,  5.  383  Idem,  14. 

34 


266  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

We  shall  close  with  a  short  notice  of  the 
preamble  of  an  act,  which  assumes,  as  the 
ground  of  its  enaction,  such  miserable  legends 
as  display  a  disregard  of  even  the  slightest  ap- 
pearance of  common  honesty.  Their  wicked- 
ness stares  us  in  the  face,  with  the  most  mere- 
tricious audacity.  The  act  was  passed  by  the 
Parliament  held  in  the  eleventh  year  of  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  which  was  called  expressly  for 
the  purpose  of  attainting  the  person,  and  confis- 
cating the  immense  estate,  of  Shane  O'Neal,  who, 
as  we  have  seen  in  page  179,  was  "rooted  out, 
on  the  complaint  of  the  nobility:"  The  preamble 
enters  into  an  elaborate  attempt  to  prove  that 
the  whole  island,  and  all  its  inhabitants,  were  the 
property  of  the  kings  of  England  !  a  most  won- 
derful proof  of  the  fidelity  with  which  the  Irish 
nation  was  represented  in  that  corrupt  and  venal 
legislature.  That  England  or  Englishmen  should 
advance  such  claims,  on  the  fabulous  histories  of 
Gurmonds,  and  Belans,  and  munificent  donations 
of  an  island  not  their  own,  is  not  very  surprising  : 
but  what  indignation  must  it  excite,  to  have  those 
claims  recorded  among  the  statutes  enacted  in 
the  metropolis  of  Ireland,  and  by  men  pretending 
to  be  representatives  of  that  kingdom  !  The  proofs 

grieved;  and  also  yield  to  the  queen's  majesty,  her  heirs  and 
successors,  such  fines,  as  by  the  lord  deputy,  governor  or 
governors  and  council  of  this  realm,  shall  be  assessed  for  their 


284  Statutes,  229. 


AN   INDISPUTABLE    TITLE.  267 

offered  would  excite  our  merriment,  did  not 
profound  astonishment  at  their  injustice  stifle  the 
propensity  to  ridicule. 

The  two  principal  grounds  were,  that  the  pro- 
genitors of  the  Irish,  who  migrated  from  Spain, 
lived  in  a  province  called  Biscan,  "  whereof 
Bayon  was  a  member ;"  that  king  Gurmond,  son 
to  the  noble  king  Belan,  king  of  Great  Britain, 
was  lord  of  Bayon  ;  and,  as  the  "  Virgin  Queen" 
was  a  lineal  descendant  of  king  Gurmond, 
"  THEREFORE," — most  wonderful  logic  ! — "  the 
Irishmen  should  be  the  king  of  England  his 
people,  and  Ireland  his  land  !" 

But,  not  relying  wholly  on  this  strong  title  to 
the  kingdom  and  the  people,  and  lest  there 
should  be  sceptics  who  would  dare  dispute  the 
point,  they  adduce  another  proof,  so  powerful  as 
to  silence  the  controversy  to  the  end  of  time. 
This  corroboration  rests  on  the  incontrovertible 
fact,  that  as  Heremon  and  Heberus  were  leading 
their  followers  from  Spain,  they  met  with  the 
said  renowned  hero,  king  Gurmond,  at  the 
islands  of  the  Orcades,  which  were  then  in  the 
route  from  Spain  to  Ireland ;  but  they  are  now 
removed  a  few  leagues  out  of  the  course.  On 
this  knotty  point  of  geography,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  dilate :  we  therefore  return  to  the  mighty  mo- 
narch Gurmond. 

This  illustrious  hero,  whose  fame  has  spread 
throughout  the  habitable  globe,  was  returning. 


268  V1NDICDE    HIBERNICJE. 

crowned  with  laurels,  from  a  great  victory  ob- 
tained in  Denmark.  The  Milesian  chiefs,  wearied 
out  with  their  tedious  pilgrimage,  and  panting 
after  an  asylum,  where  they  might  repose  from 
their  labours,  made  an  humble  supplication  to 
the  conqueror,  to  grant  them  some  place  to 
the  west,  wherein  to  settle  themselves.  This 
puissant  prince,  a  mirror  of  humanity  and  be- 
nignity, had  compassion  on  the  wanderers ; 
most  graciously  made  them  a  present  of  the 
Emerald  Isle,  with  ah1  its  appurtenances ;  and 
moreover  kindly  furnished  guides,  to  direct  them 
in  their  voyage  thither.  And  therefore  "they 
should  and  ought  to  be  the  king  of  England  his 


men." 


The  migration  of  the  Milesians  to  Ireland,  is 
stated  by  O'Connor,  one  of  the  most  learned 
antiquarians  of  the  last  century,  to  have  taken 
place  eleven  hundred  years  before  the  Christian 
era :  the  act  for  the  attainder  of  O'Neale  was 
passed  in  1583.  Thus  the  claim  was  quite  a 
recent  one,  not  quite  twenty-seven  hundred  years 
old! 

The  reader  may  perhaps  imagine,  that,  to 
change  the  scene,  we  have  taken  a  flight  into  the 
regions  of  fancy ;  and  that  all  we  have  stated, 
respecting  Gurmond,  and  Belan,  and  Biscan,  and 
the  Orcades,  and  Heberus,  and  Heremon,  and 
the  great  victory  in  Denmark,  and  the  magnifi- 
cent present  of  Ireland,  is  mere  rhodomontade. 


AN   INDISPUTABLE    TITLE.  269 

But  the  annexed  extract*  from  the  preface  to 
the  act  for  the  attainder  of  Shane  O'Neal,  will 

*  Extract  from  "  An  Act  for  the  attainder  of  Shane  O'Neile, 
and  the  extinguishment  of  the  name  of  G1  Neile,  and  the  enti- 
tling of  the  §>ueerfs  majesty,  her  heirs,  and  successours,  tv 
the  country  of  Tyrone,  and  other  countries  and  territories 
in  Ulster. 

"  And  now,  most  deere  sovereign  ladie,  least  that  any 
man  which  list  not  to  seeke  and  learn  the  truth,  might  be  ledd 
eyther  of  his  owne  fantasticall  imagination,  or  by  the  sinister 
suggestion  of  others,  to  think  that  the  sterne  or  lyne  of  the 
Oneyles  should  or  ought,  by  prioritie  of  title,  to  hold  and 
possess  anie  part  of  the  dominion  or  territories  of  Ulster  be- 
fore your  majestic,  your  heyres,  and  successours,  we,  your 
grace's  said  faithfull  and  obedient  subjects,  for  avoyding  of 
all  such  scruple,  doubt,  and  erroneous  conceit,  doe  intend  here 
(pardon  first  craved  of  your  majestic  for  our  tedious  boldness) 
to  disclose  unto  your  highness  your  auncient  and  sundry  strong 
authentique  tytles,  conveyed  farr  beyonde  the  said  lynage  of 
the  Oneyles  and  all  other  of  the  Irishrie  to  the  dignitie,  state, 
title  and  possesion  of  this  your  realm  of  Ireland. 

"  And  therefore  it  may  like  your  most  excellent  majestic  to 
be  advertized,  that  the  auncient  chronicles  of  this  realm,  writ- 
ten both  in  the  Latine,  English,  and  Irish  tongues,  alledged 
sundry  auncient  ty  ties  for  the  kings  of  England  to  this  land  of 
Ireland.  And  first,  that  at  the  beginning,  afore  the  comming 
of  Irishmen  into  the  said  land,  they  were  dwelling  in  a  pro- 
vince of  Spain,  the  which  is  called  Biscan,  whereof  Bayon  -was 
a  member,  and  the  chief  citie.  And  that,  at  the  said  Irishmen's 
comming  into  Ireland,  one  king  Gurmond,  sonne  to  the  noble 
king  Belan,  king  of  Great  Britaine,  which  now  is  called  Eng- 
land, ivas  lord  of  Bayon,  as  many  of  his  successours  were  to 
the  time  of  king  Henry  the  second,  first  conqueror  of  this 
realm:  and  THEREFORE  THE  IRISHMEN  SHOULD 
BE  THE  KING  OF  ENGLAND  HIS  PEOPLE,  AND 
IRELAND  HIS  LAND!! 

u  Another  title  is,  that  at  the  same  time  that  Irishmen  came 
out  of  Biscay,  as  exhiled  persons,  in  sixty  ships,  they  met  with 


270  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

remove  all  doubt  on  the  subject,  and  convince 
him  we  have  been  as  sober  and  serious  as  John 
Bunyan,  when  writing  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

the  same  king  Gurmond  upon  the  sea,  at  the  ysles  of  Orcades, 
then  comming  from  Denmark  with  great  victory.  Their 
captains,  called  Heberus  and  Heremon,  went  to  this  king,  and 
him  tolde  the  cause  of  their  comming  out  of  Biscay,  and  him 
prayed,  with  great  instance,  that  he  would  graunt  unto  them, 
that  they  might  inhabit  some  land  in  the  west.  The  king  at 
the  last,  by  advise  of  the  councel,  granted  them  Ireland  to 
inhabite,  and  assigned  unto  them  guides  for  the  sea,  to  bring 
them  thither:  and  THEREFORE  THEY  SHOULD  AND 
OUGHT  TO  BE  THE  KING  OF  ENGLAND'S  MEN ! ! 

"  Another  title  is,  as  the  clerke  Geraldus  Cambrensis  wri- 
teth  at  large  the  historic  of  the  conquest  of  Ireland  by  king 
Henry  the  second,  your  famous  progenitor,  how  Dermot  Mac 
Morch,  prince  of  Leinster,  which  is  the  first  part  of  Ireland, 
being  a  tyrant  or  tyrants,  banished,  Avent  over  the  sea  into 
Normandie,  in  the  parts  of  France,  to  the  said  king  Henry  ; 
and  him  besely  besought  of  succour,  which  he  obtained,  and 
thereupon  became  liege  man  to  the  said  king  Henry,  through 
which  he  brought  power  of  Englishmen  into  the  land,  and 
married  his  daughter,  named  Eve,  at  Waterford,  to  Sir  Rich- 
ard Fitz-Gilbert,  earle  of  Stranguile  in  Wales,  and  to  him 
granted  the  reversion  of  Leinster,  with  the  said  Eve  his 
daughter.  And  after  that  the  said  earle  granted  to  the  said 
king  Henry  the  citie  of  Dublin,  with  certain  cantreds  of  lands 
next  to  Dublin,  and  all  the  haven  towns  of  Leinster,  to  have 
the  rest  to  him  in  quiet  with  his  grace's  favour. 

"  Another  title  is,  that  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  God  one 
thousand  one  hundred  sixtie-two,  the  aforesaid  king  Henry- 
landed  at  the  citie  of  Waterford,  within  the  realm  of  Ireland, 
and  there  came  to  him  Dermot,  king  of  Corke,  which  is  of  the 
nation  of  the  M'Carties,  and  of  his  own  proper  will  became 
liege,  tributarie  for  him  and  his  kingdom,  and  upon  that  made 
his  oath  and  gave  his  hostages  to  the  king.  Then  the  king 
roade  to  Cashell,  and  there  came  to  him  Donalde,  king  of 


AN   INDISPUTABLE    TITLE.  271 

Should  this  work  travel  to  the  continent  of 
Europe,  it  may  produce  serious  consequences  to 

Limerick,  which  is  of  the  nation  of  the  O'Brienes,  and  be- 
came his  liege,  as  the  other  did.  Then  came  to  him  Donald, 
king  of  Ossorie,  Mac-Shaglin,  king  of  Ophaly,  and  all  the 
princes  of  the  south  of  Ireland,  and  became  his  liege  men,  as 
aforesaid.  Then  went  the  said  king  Henry  to  Dublin,  and 
there  came  to  him  O'Kernill,  king  of  Uriel,  O'Rowcke,  king 
of  Meth,  and  Rotherick,  king  of  all  Irishmen  of  the  land,  and 
of  Connaught,  with  all  the  princes,  and  men  of  value  of  the 
land;  and  became  liege  subjects,  and  tributaries,  by  great 
oathes  for  them,  their  kingdoms  and  lordships  to  the  said  king 
Henry ;  and  that  of  their  own  good  wills,  as  it  should  seem  ; 
for  that  the  chronicles  make  no  mention  of  any  rvarre  or  chi- 
valrie  done  by  the  said  king,  all  the  time  that  he  was  in  Ireland. 
"  And  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  God,  a  thousand,  a  hundred, 
four  score  and  five,  he  gave  the  land  of  Ireland  to  his  young- 
est sonne,  John  by  name,  about  which  time  the  said  John 
came  in  person  into  Ireland,  and  held  the  same  land. 

"  Another  title  is,  that  all  the  clergie  of  this  realm  assem- 
bled at  Armagh,  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  upon  the  com- 
ming  over  of  Englishmen,  our  forefathers ;  and  there  it  was 
decreed  and  deemed  by  them,  that  through  the  sin  of  the 
people  of  the  land,  by  the  sentence  of  God,  the  mischief  of  the 
Conquest  them  befell. 

"  Another  title  is,  that  at  the  first  comming  and  being  of 
king  Richard  the  second  in  Ireland,  at  the  citie  of  Dublin,  and 
other  places  of  the  land,  there  came  unto  him,  with  their  own 
good  wills,  O'Neyle,  captain  of  the  Irishmen  of  Ulster, 
O'Breene,  of  Thomond,  O'Conner  of  Connaught,  Arthur  Mac 
Morchie,  captain  of  Irishmen  in  Leinster,  and  all  captains  of 
Irishmen  of  Ireland,  and  became  liege  men  to  the  said  king 
Richard,  and  to  him  did  homage  and  fealty  ;  and  for  the  more 
greater  suertie  bound  themselves  in  great  summes  of  money, 
by  divers  instruments,  in  case'  they  did  not  truly  keep  and 
hold  their  allegiance  in  the  forme  aforesaid :  and  therefore, 
sayeth  this  clerke,  that  from  the  beginning  of  his  time,  which 


272  VINDICIJE  HIBERNIC.E. 

the  peace  and  independence  of  the  United  States. 
Many  Swedes,  and  some  of  the  subjects  of  the 
sublime  and  puissant  princes  of  Germany  have 
made  considerable  settlements  in  Pennsylvania. 
And  these  great  potentates,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  the  successors  of  Gurmond,  may  be  tempt- 
ed to  lay  claim  to  a  large  portion,  perhaps  the 
whole,  of  the  state.  But,  alas  !  the  evil  may  ex- 
tend further.  Certain  Knickerbockerites  settled 
New  Amsterdam  formerly.  And  therefore  the 
puissant  king  of  Holland  may,  on  the  same 
grounds,  claim  large  sections  of  New  York.  It 
is,  moreover,  shrewdly  suspected,  that  some  of 
the  citizens  of  the  powerful  and  extensive  repub- 
lic of  Ragusa,  settled  themselves  among  the  pil- 
grims of  New  England.  The  Yankees  may  there- 
fore look  out  sharp  for  squalls. 

was  about  three  hundred  and  four  score  years  past,  GOOD  is 

THE  KING  OF  ENGLAND'S    TITLE    AND    RIGHT    TO  THE   LAND 
AND  LORDSHIP  OF  IRELAND."285 

28S  Statutes,  231. 


PRIVILEGES    OF    PARLIAMENT.  273 

Sometimes,  notwithstanding  all  the  various 
lines  of  circumvallation  by  which  the  vice-regal 
authority  was  fenced  round,  and  the  fraud,  cor- 
ruption, and  venality,  by  which  the  proceedings 
of  the  legislature  were  managed,  measures  were 
carried  there  offensive  to  his  high  mightiness,  the 
deputy  for  the  time  being.  But  such  was  the 
prudence  and  foresight  of  the  administration  of 
that  happy  kingdom,  that  there  was  an  adequate 
remedy  provided  even  for  this  disorder.  It  was 
very  simple,  and  of  easy  application  ;  being 
merely  to  tear  out  the  leaves  of  the  Journals, 
containing  the  obnoxious  matter,  in  due  form, 
and  with  a  proper  exhibit  of  proconsular  dignity: 

"  On  the  29th  of  November,  164O,  the  following  very  ex- 
traordinary memorandum  appears  in  the  Journals  :  "  Memo. 
By  virtue  of  his  majesty's  letters,  we,  the  lord  deputy,  have, 
at  the  council-board,  had  two  orders  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  presence  of  divers,  of  the  late  members,  torn  out  of  the 
Journals.  These  orders  related  to  presenting  ways  and  rates 
to  be  observed  in  taking  the  growing  subsidies."280 

380  Mountmorres,  II.  40. 


(     274     ) 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

•;  An  act  of  most  gracious,  general,  and  free  par- 
don"  with  only  fifty  classes  of  exceptions,  each 
averaging  four  or  five  species;  that  is,  "  a  gene- 
ral par  do7i,"  with  about  two  hundred  exceptions. 

"  Et  voila  justement  comme  on  ecrit  1'histoire." — Voltaire. 

AMONG  the  multifarious  frauds  respecting 
Ireland,  with  which  the  world  has  been  deluded, 
one  of  the  most  palpable  remains  to  be  noticed. 

It  is  universally  believed,  on  the  uniform 
declarations  of  probably  all  the  Anglo-Hibernian 
writers,  that  an  act  of  general  amnesty,  for  all 
offences  whatsoever,  was  passed  by  the  Irish 
Parliament,  in  the  session  which  commenced 
anno  1613. 

"  The  session  concluded  with  an  act  of  oblivion  and  general 
pardon."™ 

"  An  act  of  general  pardon  and  oblivion  was  made,  in  con- 
firmation of  the  royal  edict."288 

"  They  passed  an  act  of  general  indemnity  for  late  crimes, 
with  an  exception  of  Tyrone,  Tyrconnel,  and  O'Dogherty."289 

"  An  act  of  general  amnesty  and  pardon  was  made,  in  con- 
firmation of  the  royal  edict."290 

"  An  act  of  general  oblivion  and  indemnity  was  passed."291 
"  All  minds  being  quieted  by  a  general  indemnity r."292 

287  Carte,  I.  22.          288  Leland,  II.  535.  289  Davies,  xxv. 

290  Gordon,  I.  327.    W1  Crawford,  I.  347.     «»  Hume,  III.  3O8. 


A  NEWLY-INVENTED  GENERAL  PARDON  ! 

A  perusal  of  these  passages,  and  of  all  the  wri- 
ters we  have  ever  examined  on  the  subject,  has 
led  the  world  to  give  credit  to  James  and  his 
Irish  Parliament  for  an  exuberant  stock  of  cle- 
mency. It  has  appeared  that  their  motto,  and 
the  benignant  rule  of  their  conduct,  had  been 
Shakspeare's  divine  commendation  of  heaven- 
born  mercy : 

"  The  quality  of  mercy,"  &c. 

It  is  supposed  that  this  act  of  "general  and 
free  pardon"  effaced  all  crimes  and  misdemeanors 
of  every  description ;  was  the  harbinger  of  an 
universal  jubilee  throughout  the  kingdom ;  and, 
from  the  hour  of  its  promulgation,  produced 
a  general  clearance  of  the  prisons  of  all  their 
tenants,  by  whatsoever  tenure  they  had  been  held 
there.  But,  alas !  in  Ireland,  words  bore  an  im- 
port different  from  what  they  had  in  any  other 
country :  and  "  an  act  of  general  pardon"  in  that 
ill-fated  nation,  was,  in  truth  and  in  fact,  an  act  of 
universal  proscription :  for  in  that  Parliament  and 
king,  towards  Ireland, 

"  There  was  no  more  mercy,  than  milk  in  a  male  tiger."293 

This  assertion  will  appear  ambiguous  :  but  the 
ambiguity  shall  be  soon  removed.  The  act  in 
question  bears,  it  is  true,  in  the  Statute-Book, 
the  fraudulent  title  of  "an  act  for  the  king's 
majestie's  most  gracious,  general,  and  free  par- 

293  Shakspeare. 


276  VINDICIJE   HIBERNIC-E. 

V 

don:'*    This  is  as  clear  and  explicit  as  language 
could  render  it ;  and,  as  the  act  itself  is  in  black- 

*  Extracts  from  "An  Act  for  the  king*s  majesties  most  gracious, 
GENERAL,  AND  FREE  PARDON  ! !  !" 

The  king's  majestic,  most  graciously  considering  the  good 
will  and  faithful  hearts  of  his  most  loving  subjects,  which  as 
at  all  times,  so  at  this  present  especially,  they  having  with 
most  dutiful  affection  showed  themselves  towards  his  high- 
ness ;  and  understanding  that  the  same  his  loving  subjects 
have  many  and  sundry  wayes,  by  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this 
reahn,  fallen  into  the  danger  of  diverse  great  penalties  and 
forfeytures,  is,  of  his  princely  and  merciful  disposition,  most 
graciously  inclined,  by  his  liberal  and  free  pardon,  to  discharge 
some  part  of  those  great  paynes,  forfeytures  and  penalties 
wherewith  his  said  subjects  stand  now  burdened  and  charged  ; 
trusting  they  will  be  thereby  the  rather  moved  and  induced, 
from  henceforth,  more  carefully  to  observe  his  highness's  laws 
and  statutes,  and  to  continue  in  their  loyal  and  due  obedience 
to  his  majestic ;  and  therefore  his  majestic  is  well  pleased  and 
contented,  that  it  be  enacted  by  the  authority  of  this  present 
Parliament,  in  manner  and  form  following,  (that  is  to  say) 
That  all  and  every  the  said  subjects,  as  well  spiritual  as  tem- 
poral of  this  his  highness's  realm  of  Ireland,  the  heyres,  suc- 
cessors, executors,  and  administrators  of  them,  and  every  of 
them,  and  all  and  singular  bodies  corporate,  cities,  shires, 
boroughs,  hundreds,  baronies,  townes,  villages,  hamlets,  and 
tythings,  and  every  of  them,  and  the  successor  and  successors 
of  every  of  them,  shall  be,  by  the  authority  of  this  present 
Parliament,  acquitted,  pardoned,  and  released,  and  discharged 
against  the  king's  majestic,  his  heyres  and  successors,  and 
every  of  them,  of  all  manner  of  treasons,  felonies,  offences, 
contempts,  trespasses,  entries,  -wrongs,  deceipts,  misdemean- 
ours, forfeytures,  penalties,  and  summs  of  many,  paynes  of 
death,  paynes  corporal  and  pecuniarie,  and  generally  of  all 
other  things,  causes,  quarrels,  suites,  judgments  and  executions, 
in  this  present  Act  hereafter  not  excepted  nor  foreprized. 


A  NEWLY-INVENTED  GENERAL  PARDON  !  !   277 

letter,  obsolete  orthography,  and  very  long,  it  is 
probable  that  those  writers  never  examined  be- 

1.  "  Except  and  alwayes  foreprized  out  of  this  general 
and  free  pardon,  all  and  all  manner  of  high  treasons,  and 
other  offences  committed  or  done  by  any  person  or  persons 
against  the  king's  majestic,  and  all  conspiracies  and  confede- 
racies, trayterously  had,  committed,  or  done,  by  any  person 
or  persons,  against  the  king's  majestie's  royal  person ;  and  all 
manner  of  levying  warre  and  all  rebellions  and  insurrections 
whatsoever  had,  made,  or  committed,  or  done  at  any  time 
sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majesty's  raigne. 

2.  "And  also  excepted  all  and  every  manner  of  treasons  com- 
mitted or  done,  by  any  person  or  persons  in  the  parts  beyond 
the  seas,  or  in  any  other  place  out  of  the  king's  dominions, 
sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's  raigne  ;  and  also  all 
suites,  punishments,  executions,  paynes  of  death,  forfeitures, 
and  penalties,  for,  or  by  reason  or  occasion  of  any  of  the  trea- 
sons and  offences  before  rehearsed. 

3.  "And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  offences  of  forg- 
ing and  false  counterfeyting  the  king's  majestic  his  great  or 
privy  scale,  sign  manual,  or  privy  signet,  or  any  of  the  monies 
current  within  this  realm ;  and  also  all  offences  of  unlawfull 
diminishing  of  any  the  said  monies,  by  any  wayes  or  means 
whatsoever,  contrary  to  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  realm  at 
any  time  sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's  raigne ;  and 
also  all  misprisions  and  concealments  of  any  the  high  treasons 
aforesaid,  and  also  all  abetting,  aiding,  comforting  or  procuring 
of  the  same  offences,  or  any  of  the  said  treasons  committed  or 
done  sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's  raigne. 

4.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon,  all  manner  of  vo- 
luntary murders,  petit  treasons,  and  wilfull  poisonings,  done  or 
committed  by  any  person  or  persons  sithence  the  beginning  of 
his  majestie's  raigne,  and  all  and  every  the  accessaries  to  the 
said  offences,  or  any  of  them,  before  the  said  offences  commit- 
ted. 

5.  "And  also  excepted  and  foreprised  out  of  this  general  par- 
don all  and  every  offence  of  piracy,  and  robbery  done  upon  the 
seas,  sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's  raigne. 


278  VINDICIJE    HIBEftNICJE. 

yond  the  title,  or,  at  all  events,  beyond  the  pre- 
amble, which  carries  the  same  delusive  promise 

6.  "And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  burglaries  com- 
mitted or  done  in  any  dwelling  house  or  houses,  and  all  acces- 
saries to  any  the  said  burglaries,  before  the  said  burglaries 
committed,  within  one  year  before  the  beginning  of  this  pre- 
sent session  of  Parliament. 

7.  "  And  also  excepted  all  robberies  done  upon,  or  to  any 
man's  or  woman's  person  in  the  high-way,  or  elsewhere,  and 
all  and  singular  accessaries  of,  or  to  any  such  robberies  be- 
fore the  said  robbery,  committed  within  one  year  before  the 
first  day  of  this  present  session  of  Parliament. 

8.  "  And  also  excepted  the  felonious  stealing  of  any  horse, 
gelding,  garron,  or  mare,  and  all  accessaries  thereunto,  before 
the  same  felony  committed,  and  all  judgments  and  executions 
of  and  for  the  same,  within  one  year  next  before  the  beginning 
of  this  present  session  of  Parliament. 

9.  "  And  also,  all  ivilfull  burnings  of  any  dwelling  house  or 
houses,  or  any  barn  or  barns,  wherein  any  corn  was,  commit- 
ted or  done  at  any  time  sithence  the  beginning  of  his   majes- 
tie's  raigne. 

10.  "  And  also  excepted  all  rapes  and  carnal  ravishments  of 
•women,  and  also  ravishments  and  wilfull  taking  away  or  marry- 
ing any  maide,  widdowe,  or  damosel,  against  her  will,  or  with- 
out the  assent  or  agreement  of  her  parents,  or  such  as  then  had 
her  in  custodie,  committed  or  done  within  one  year  before  the 
beginning  of  this  present  session  of  Parliament.     And  also  all 
offences  of  ayding,  comforting,  procuring  or  abetting  of  any 
such  ravishment,  wilfull  taking  away  or  marrying,  had,  com- 
mitted or  done. 

11."  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  persons  now 
attainted  or  outlawed,  of  or  for  any  treason,  petit  treason,  mur- 
der, wilfull  poysoning,  burglary,  or  robbery,  and  all  execu- 
tions of  and  for  the  same. 

12.  "  And  also  excepted  all  offences  of  invocations,  conjura- 
tions, witchcraft,  sorteri.es,  inchantments  and  charms,  and  all 
offences  of  procuring,  abetting,  or  comforting  of  the  same,  and 
all  persons  now  attainted  and  convicted  of  any  of  the  said  of- 


A  NEWLY-INVENTED  GENERAL,  PARDON  !  !   279 

of  clemency :  but,  with  Shakspeare,  we  may  well 
exclaim, 

"  Oh  !  what  a  goodly  outside  falsehood  hath  !" 

fences,  at  any  time  sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's 
raigne. 

1 3.  "  And  also  excepted  all  and  every  manner  or  taking 
from  the  king's  majestic,  of  any  the  goods  or  chattels,  or  the 
issues,  rents,  revenues  or  profits  of  any  manners,  lands,  tene- 
ments, and  hereditaments,  which  were  of  any  traytor,  murder- 
er, felon,  clerke  or  clerkes  attainted,  or  fugitives,  or  of  any  of 
them. 

14.  "  And  also  excepted  all  goods  and  chattels,  in  any  wise 
forfeited  to  the  king's  majestic  by  treason,  petit  treason,  mur- 
der,' or  felony,  heretofore  committed  or  done. 

15.  "  And  also  excepted  all  offences  of  or  in  making,  writ- 
ing, printing,  or  publishing,  or  in  consenting  to  the  making, 
writing,  printing,  or  publishing,  of  any  false,  seditious,  or 
slaunderous  book  or  books,  libell  or  libells,  in  any  wise  against 
the  king's  majestic,  or  the  present  government  of  this  realme, 
in  cases  either  ecclesiasticall  or  temporall,  or  against  any  per- 
son or  persons  whatsoever. 

16.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  intrusions, 
had,  or  made,  or  done  by  any  person  or  persons,  in  or  upon 
any  of  the  manners,  lands,  tenements,  or  other  hereditaments 
of  our  said  sovereign  lord  the  king ;  and  all  wastes  done,  com- 
mitted or  suffered  upon  any  such  lands,  tenements,  or  heredit- 
aments, and  the  wrongfull  taking  of  any  the  rents,  issues,  and 
profits  of  the  same  manners,  lands,  tenements,  or  heredita- 
ments, of  our  said  sovereign  lord  the  king,  at  any  time  sithence 
the  beginning  of  his  majestie's  raigne.     And  also  all  suites, 
accounts  and  impetitions,  of  and  for  the  same. 

17.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  alienations 
of  any  lands,  tenements  or  hereditaments,  without  license,  and 
all  fines,  issues  and  profits,  that  may  or  ought  to  grow  or  come 
to  the  king's  majestic,  by  reason  of  any  such  alienations,  with- 
out license,  at  any  time  sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's 
raigne. 


280  VIND1CIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

And  never  was  there  more  "  falsehood"  under  a 
"  goodly  outside,"  than  in  this  instance.     For,  in 

18.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon,  all  wastes  com- 
mitted or  done,  in  any  of  the  king's  wards'  lands,  or  in  the 
wards'  lands  of  any  of  the  king's  counties ;  and  also  all  and 
every  fine  or  fines,  for  the  single  and  double  value  of  the  mar- 
riage or  marriages  of  all  and  every  ward  or  wards,  at  any  time 
heretofore  grown  to  the  king's  majestic,  sithence  the  beginning 
of  his  majestie's  raigne. 

19.  "And  also  excepted  concealed  wards,  and  the  lands  of 
such  wards  concealed,  and  all  liveries  and  primer  seisins  and 
ousterlemains,  that  ought  to  be  had,  done  or  sued  for  the  same, 
sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's  raigne. 

20.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  general  pardon  all  ra- 
vishments and  wrongfull  taking  or  withholding  any  the  king's 
ward  or  wards,  lands  or  rents,  and  profits  of  the  same,  at  any- 
time coming  or  growing  to  the  king's  hands,  sithence  the  be- 
ginning of  his  majestie's  raigne ;  and  every  thing  that  by  rea- 
son of  any  such  ward  or  wards'  lands,  and  for  default  of  suing 
or  prosecuting,  of  any  livery  for  any  such  wards'  lands  ought 
to  come  or  to  be  to  the  king's  majestic,  and  which  as  yet  is 
not  discharged. 

21.  "And  also  excepted  all  jlnes  that  shoulder  ought  to 
grow  to  the  king's  majestic,  of  any  his  widdows  that  have  mar- 
ried without  license,  sithence  the  beginning  of  his  majestie's 
raigne. 

22.  "  And  also  excepted  and  foreprised  out  of  this  pardon, 
all  such  persons  as,  the  last  day  of  this  present  session  of  Par- 
liament, be  in  prison,  within  the  castle  of  Dublin,  or  in  the 
prison  of  Marshalsie,  or  otherwise  restrained  of  liberty  by  ex- 
press commandment  of  the  lord  deputy,  or  by  the  command- 
ment or  directions  of  any  his  majestie's  privy  council. 

23.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  and  every 
such  person  and  persons  which  at  any  time  sithence  the  begin- 
ning of  the  king's  majestie's  raigne,  have  fed  out  of  this  realm 
of  Ireland,  or  any  other  the  king's  dominions,  for  any  offence 
of  high  treason,  petit  treason,  or  misprision  of  treason. 


A  NEWLY-INVENTED  GENERAL  PARDON  !  !   281 

the  body  of  this  "  act  of  general  and  free  pardon," 
there  are  no  less  than  FIFTY  CLASSES  OF  EXCEP- 

24.  "  And  also  excepted  all  such  persons  as  be  gone  or  fled 
out  of  this  realm,  for  any  cause  contrarie  to  the  laws  and  sta- 
tutes of  this  realm,  without  the  king's  majestie's  license. 

25.  "  And  also  excepted  all  such  persons  as  have  obtained 
and  had  license  to  depart  this  realm,  for  certain  time,  and  now 
do  abide  out  of  this  realm,  without  any  lawful  excuse,  after  the 
time  of  their  licenses  expired. 

26.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  and  every 
concealments  or  wrongfull  detainments  of  any  custom  or  sub- 
sidie  due  to  the  king's  majestic,  sithence  the  beginning  of  his 
majestie's  raigne,  and  all  corruptions  and  misdemeanours  of 
any  officer  or  minister  of  or  concerning  any  custom  or  subsi- 
die,  and  all  accompts,  impetitions  and  suites  to  be  had,  made 
or  done  for  the  same. 

27.  "And  also  excepted  all  and  singular  accompts  of  all  and 
every  collector  and  collectors  of  any  subsidie,  custom,  impo- 
sition, composition  or  other  thing ;  and  all  accompts  of  every 
other  person  whatsoever  that  ought  to  be  accomptant  to  the 
king's  highness,  and  the  heirs,  executors,  and  administrators 
of  every  such  person  that  ought  to   accompt  for  all  things 
touching  only  the  same  accompts  ;  and  all  and  singular  arrear- 
ages of  accompts,  and  all  untrue  accompts,  and  all  petitions, 
charges,  and  seisures,  suites,  demaunds,  and  executions  which 
may  or  can  be  had,  of  or  for  any  accompts  or  any  arrearages 
of  the  same. 

28.  "  And  also  excepted  all  titles  and  actions  of  quare  im- 
pedit,  and  all  homages,  reliefe  and  reliefes,  'heriots,  rents,  ser- 
vices, rent  charges,  rent  seeks,  and  the  arrearages  of  the  same, 
not  done  or  paid  to  the  king's  highness. 

29.  "  And  also  excepted  all  conditions  and  covenants,  and 
all  penalties,  titles  and  forfeytures  of  condition  or  conditions, 
covenant  or  covenants,  accrued  or  grown  to  the  king's  ma- 
jestic, by  reason  of  the  breach  and  not  performing  of  any  cove- 
nants or  conditions. 

36 


282  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

TIONS,  embracing  almost  every  conceivable  crime 
of  which  the  Statute-Book  takes  cognizance ;  and 

30.  "  And  also  excepted  all  summs  of  money  granted  by  the 
king's  majestic,  or  any  his  noble  progenitors  ;  and  all  conceal- 
ments, fraudes  and  offences  by  which  his  majesty  hath  been 
deceived  or  not  truly  answered  of  or  for  the  same. 

31.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  debtes  which 
were  or  be  due  to  our  soveraign  lord  the  king,  or  to  the  most 
noble  queen  Elizabeth,  of  famous  memorie,  or  to  any  person 
or  persons  for  or  to  any  of  their  uses,  by  any  condemnation, 
recognizance,  obligation  or  otherwise,  other  than  such  debts  as 
are  due  upon  any  obligation  or  recognizance  forfeyted  before 
the  first  day  of  this  present  session  of  Parliament ;  for  not  ap- 
pearance in  any  court  or  other  place  whatsoever" ;   or  for  not 
keeping  of  the  peace,  or  not  being  of  good  behaviour,  which 
debts  growen  and  accrued  upon  these  cases,  by  this  free  par- 
don be  and  shall  be  freely  pardoned  and  discharged. 

32.  "  And  also  excepted  and  foreprized  out  of  this  pardon 
all  and  singular  penalties,  forfeytures  and  summs  of  money , 
being  due,  and  accrued  to  our  soveraign  lord  the  king,  by 
reason  of  any  act,  statute,  or  statutes  :  which  forfeytures,  pe- 
nalties and  summs  of  money  be  converted  into  the  nature  of 
debts,  by  any  judgment,  order  or  decree,  or  by  the  agreement 
of  the  offendovlr  or  offenders,  sithence  the  beginning  of  the 
raigne  of  the  late  queen  Elizabeth. 

33.  "  And  also  excepted  all  forfeytures  of  leases  and  estates 
or  interests  of  any  lands,  tenements  or  hereditaments,  holden 
of  our  soveraign  lord  the  king's  majestic  by  knight  service, 
or  in  socage,  in  capite,  or  otherwise  by  knight  service  made  in 
one  or  several  assurances  or  leases  for  any  term  or  terms  of 
years,  whereupon  the  old  and  accustomed  rent  or  more  is  not 
reserved. 

34.  "  And  also  excepted  all  first  fruits  at  this  present  being 
due  to  be  paid  to  his  majestic,  by  force  of  any  act  or  statute  or 
otherwise. 

35.  "And  also  excepted  all  penalties  and  forfeytures  whereof 
there  is  any  verdict  in  any  suit  given  or  past  for  the  king's 
majestic. 


A  NEWLY-INVENTED  GENERAL.  PARDON  !  !   283 

which,  for  the  purpose  of  adding  one  more  to  the 
various  proofs  we  have  already  adduced,  of  the 

36.  "  And  also  excepted  all  forfeitures  and  other  penalties 
and  profits  now  due,  accrued  and  growen,  or  which  shall  or 
may  be  due,  accrued  or  growing  to  the  king's  majestic,  by 
reason  of  any  offence,  misdeameanour,  contempt,  or  act  or 
deed,  suffered,  had,  committed,  or  done,  contrary  to  any  a'ct, 
statute  or  statutes,  or  contrary  to  the  common  laws  of  this 
realm,  and  whereof  or  for  the  which  any  action,  bill,  plaint  or 
information,  at  any  time  within  eight  years  next  before  the  last 
day  of  this  present  session  of  Parliament,  hath  been  or  shall  be 
exhibited,  commenced  or  sued  in  the  courts  of  Castle  Chamber 
or  in  any  the  king's  majestie's  courts  at  Dublin,  and  now  is, 
or  the  said  last  day  of  this  session  of  Parliament,  shall  be  there 
depending,  and  remaining  to  be  prosecuted,  or  whereof  the 
king's  majestic,  by  his  bill  assigned,  hath  heretofore  made  any 
gift  or  assignment  to  any  person  or  persons. 

37.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  general  and  free  pardon 
all  offences,  contempts,  disorders,  covins,  frauds,  deceipts  and 
misdemeanours  -whatsoever,  heretofore  committed  or  done  by 
any  person  or  persons,  and  whereof  or  for  the  which  any 
suit,  by  bill,  plaint  or  information,  at  any  time  within  four 
years  next  before  the  last  day  of  this  present  session  of  Parlia- 
ment, is  or  shall  be  commenced  or  exhibited  in  the  court  of 
Castle  Chamber,  and  shall  be  there  the  same  last  day  of  this 
session  of  Parliament  depending,  or  whereupon  any  sentence 
or  decree  is  given  or  entered. 

38.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  offences  of 
perjuries  and  subornations  of  witnesses,  and  offences  of  forg- 
ing and  counterfeiting  of  any  false  deeds,  escriptes  or  writ- 
ings ;  and  all  procuring  and  counselling  of  any  such  counter- 
feiting or  forging  to  be  had  or  made. 

39.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  offences  of 
incest,  adultery,  fornication  and  simony,  and  all  such  usury  for 
which  any  interest  hath  been  received  or  taken  since  the  first 
day  of  this  present  session  of  Parliament ;  and  all  misdemean- 
ours and  disturbances  committed  or  made  in  any  church  or 
chappel,  in  the  time  of  common  prayer,  preaching  or  divine 


284  VINDICLK  HIBERNICA. 

fidelity  of  Irish  historians,  are  enumerated  in  the 
annexed  note. 

service  there  used,  to  the  disturbance  thereof;  and  all  outlaw- 
ries and  prosecutions  upon  the  same. 

40.  "  And  also  excepted  all  offences  whereby  any  person 
may  be  charged  with  the  penalty  and  danger  of  premunire,  and 
of  the  which  offence  or  offences  any  person  standeth  already 
indicted,  or  otherwise  lawfully  condemned  or  convicted. 

41.  "  And  also  excepted  all  dilapidations  for  which  any  suit 
is,  or  before  the  end  of  this  session  of  Parliament  shall  be, 
depending. 

42.  "  And  also  excepted  all  offences  in  taking  away,  imbey- 
selling  or  purloyning  any  the  king's  majestie's  goods,  money, 
chattels,  jewels,  armour,  munition,  ordinance,  or  other  habili- 
ments of  warre. 

43.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  manner  of 
extortions  whatsoever. 

44.  "  And  also  excepted  all  covins,  frauds,  deceipts  and 
other  disorders  and  misdemeanours  whatsoever,  heretofore 
committed  or  done  by  any  steward  of  his  majestie's  mannours 
or  courts,  under  sheriffe,  or  by  any  officer  or  minister  in  any 
of  his  highness'  courts,  in  or  by  reason  or  colour  of  any  of 
their  offices  or  places,  or  any  their  deputys  or  clerkes ;  and  all 
offences  of  ayding,  comforting,  assisting  or  procuring  of  any 
under  sheriffe  or  any  such  officer,  minister,  or  clerke,  in  con- 
tinuing, doing  or  executing  any  such  extortion,  exaction,  covin, 
fraud,  deceipt,  disorder  or  misdemeanour. 

45.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  issues,  fines 
and  amercements  being  totted,  levied  or  received  by  any  she- 
riffe, under  sheriffe,  bayliffe,  minister  or  other  officer,  to  or 
for  the  king's  majestie's  use  or  behoofe,  before  the  last  day  of 
this  present  session  of  Parliament ;   and  all  issues,  fines  and 
amerciaments  affered,  taxed,  estreated  or  entered  severally  or 
particularly,  touching  or  concerning  any  one  person  or  more 
persons  joyntly  or  severally,  above  the  sum  of  six  pounds. 

46.  "  And  also  excepted  all  issues,  fines  and  amerciaments 
affered,  taxed,  set  or  entered  severally  or  particularly  in  any 
court  of  record  at  Dublin,  at  any  time  sithence  the  feast  of 


A  NEWLY-INVENTED  GENERAL  PARDON  !  !   285 

The  extracts  from  this  act  are  longer,  perhaps, 
than  are  consistent  with  the  nature  of  this  work : 

Saint  Bartholomew  last  past ;  and  yet  nevertheless  all  other 
fines,  as  well  finis  pro  licentio  concordandi,  as  other  set,  taxed, 
estreated  or  entered  afore  the  said  feast  of  Saint  Bartholomew ; 
and  also  all  issues  and  amerciaments  as  well  real  as  others, 
within  any  liberties  or  without,  being  set,  taxed,  estreated  or 
entered  afore  the  said  feast  of  Saint  Bartholomew,  and  which 
severally  or  particularly  extend  to  or  under  the  summ  of  six 
pounds,  and  not  above,  whether  they  be  estreated  or  not  es- 
treated, or  whether  they  be  turned  into  debt  or  not  turned  into 
debt,  and  not  being  totted,  levied  or  recovered  by  any  sheriflfe, 
under  sheriffe,  minister  or  other  officer,  to  or  for  the  king's 
majestie's  use  or  behoof,  before  the  last  day  of  this  present  ses- 
sion of  Parliament,  shall  be  freely,  clearly  and  plainly  pardoned 
and  discharged  against  the  king's  majestic,  his  heyres  and 
successours  for  ever,  by  force  of  this  present  act  of  free  par- 
don ;  and  yet  nevertheless,  all  estreats  of  such  fines,  issues  and 
amerciaments  as  be  now  pardoned  by  this  act,  and  be  already 
estreated  forth  of  the  court  of  exchequer,  and  be  remaining  in 
the  hand  of  the  sheriffe,  under  sheriffe  and  bayliffe  for  collect- 
ing of  the  same  fines,  issues  and  amerciaments,  shall,  upon  the 
return  of  the  same  estreats,  be  orderly  charged  and  delivered 
by  scrowls  into  the  office  of  the  pipe  in  the  court  of  exche- 
quer, as  heretofore  hath  been  accustomed,  to  the  intent  that 
thereupon  order  may  be  taken  that  his  majesty  may  be  truly 
answered  in  all  fines,  issues  and  amerciaments  not  by  this  act 
pardoned,  and  which  any  sheriffe,  under  sheriffe,  bayliffe  or 
other  officer  or  minister  hath  received  or  ought  to  answer  for 
by  force  or  colour  of  any  such  estreat,  processe  or  precept  to 
him  or  them  made  for  the  levying  thereof:  and  yet  notwith- 
standing all  and  every  sheriffe  and  sheriffes  and  other  ac- 
comptants,  upon  his  or  their  petition  or  petitions,  to  be  made 
for  the  allowance  of  any  such  fines,  issues  and  amerciaments 
as,  by  this  act  pardoned,  shall  have  all  and  every  such  his  and 
their  petition  allowed  in  his  or  their  accompt  and  accompts, 
without  paying  any  fee  or  reward  to  any  officer,  clerk  or  other 


286  V1NDICUE    HIBERNICJE. 

but  we  trust  they  will  be  excused ;  as  no  abridg- 
ment could  do  justice  to  the  subject,  or  to  the 
grand  object  we  have  in  view,  which  is  to  open 
the  eyes  of  every  reader,  who  is  not  wilfully 
blind,  to  the  undeviating  fraud,  falsehood,  and 

minister,  for  the  making,  entering  or  allowing  of  any  such  pe- 
tition, any  usage  or  custome  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

47.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  goods,  chat- 
tels, debts,  actions  and  suites  already  forfeited,  or  whereof  any 
right  or  title  is  accrued  and  growen  to  the  king's  majestic  by 
reason  of  any  outlawry,  and  whereof  the  king's  majestic,  by 
his  highness's  letters  patent,  hath,  before'the  last  day  of  this 
present  session  of  Parliament,  made  any  grant,  covenant  or 
proviso  to  any  person  or  persons. 

48.  "  And  also  excepted  out  of  this  pardon  all  such  persona 
as  be  and  remain  still  attainted  or  condemned,  and  not  already 
pardoned,  of  or  for  any  rebellion  or  levying  of  warre,  or  of  or 
for  any  conspiracy  of  any  rebellion  or  levying  of  warre,  within 
this  realm,  or  in  any  other  the  king's  dominions. 

49.  "  And  also  excepted  all  false  forging  and  counterfeiting 
of  any  untrue  certificates. 

50.  "  And  also  excepted  all  false  forging  and  counterfeiting 
of  any  commission  or  commissions  to  inquire  of  any  lands, 
tenements  or  hereditaments  :  or  return  of  any  commission"  or 
commissions  obtained  or  gotten  of  any  court  or  courts  to  in- 
quire of  any  lands,  tenements  or  other  things  whatsoever; 
and  all  and  all  manner  of  falsifying  of  any  particular,  or  of 
any  bill  or  bills  signed  by  his  majestic  after  the  ingrossing 
thereof,  and  before  the  passing  of  the  same  unto  the  great  seal. 

51.  "  Provided  also,  and  be  it  enacted  by  the  authority  of 
this  present  Parliament,  that  this  act  of  general  pardon  shall 
not  in  any  wise  extend  to  any  person  outlawed  upon  any  writ 
of  capias  ad  satisfaciendum,  until  such  time  as  the  person  so 
outlawed  shall  satisfie,  or  otherwise  agree  with  the  party  at 
whose  suit  the  same  person  was  so  outlawed  or  condemned."294 

294  Statutes,  327. 


HISTORICAL,    ACCURACY.  287 

imposture,  that  run  through  the  whole  body  of 
the  Anglo-Hibernian  histories  of  Ireland,  as  pen- 
ned by  those  writers  who  have  pandered  to 
the  passions,  the  prejudices,  and  the  grinding 
tyranny  of  "  the  Protestant  ascendency,"  and 
contaminated  and  corrupted  the  history  of  Ireland 
to  an  extent  unequalled  in  that  of  any  other 
portion  of  the  terraqueous  globe.  This  object 
we  feel  proudly  confident  we  have  accomplished, 
with  such  of  our  readers  as  have  brought  to  the 
perusal  of  this  work,  a  mind  disposed  to  hail  the 
appearance  of  holy  Truth,  in  whatsoever  form 
she  may  appear. 

We   hope  the   reader  will  bear  in  remem- 
brance the  deceptious  statement  of  this  act,  as 
he  peruses  some  of  the  subsequent  chapters,  in 
which,  from  the  nature  of  the  subjects,  the  detec- 
tion of  imposture  is  rendered  difficult,  and,  in 
fact,  would  be  impossible,  if  the  stupidity  of  the 
projectors  were  not  on  a  par  with  their  wicked- 
ness.    Had  their  ingenuity  amounted  to  a  twen- 
tieth part  of  their  fraud,  they  might  have  con- 
trived tales  so  plausible  as  to  bid  defiance  to 
detection  :  but  fortunately  their  fabrications  are 
compacted  together  with  so  much  grossness  and 
incoherence,  that  it  requires  but  moderate  abili- 
ties to  expose  them,  in  all  their  naked  deformity, 
to  the  contempt  and  loathing  of  every  liberal 
mind.     Had  those  tales,  however,  been  devised 
with  talents  equal  to  the  wickedness  of  the  con- 
trivers, and  furnished  no  internal  evidence  to 


288  VlNDlCLiE    HIBERNICJE. 

condemn  them,  even  in  that  case  they  would 
merit  rejection ;  as  we  have  established,  in  the 
historians  who  narrate  them,  a  total  disregard  of 
truth,  and  the  strongest  and  most  palpable  facts, 
in  every  instance  which  admitted  of  producing 
evidence.  This  act  of  "  gracious,  general,  and 
free  pardon,"  would,  if  it  stood  alone,  be  suffi- 
cient to  decide  the  question.  It  is  recorded  in 
the  Statute-Book ;  open  to  the  inspection  of  all 
the  writers  who  have  treated  on  it ;  and  detection, 
like  the  well-known  "  sword  of  Damocles,"  hung 
over  the  head  of  imposture  or  sophistication. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  all  these  strong  circum- 
stances, we  see  that  its  real  character  is  as 
diametrically  opposite  to  the  views  given  of  it, 
as  the  pitchy  darkness  of  the  lowest  regions  of 
Erebus  to  the  starry  canopy  of  heaven.  And 
will  not  every  man  of  mind  ask,  what  depen- 
dence, in  points  involved  in  doubt,  obscurity,  or 
mystery,  such  as  plots  and  conspiracies,  can  be 
placed  on  writers  who  poison  the  pure  streams 
of  history,  in  such  plain  cases  as  this,  and  so 
many  others  which  we  have  exhibited  to  the 
reader  ? 


CHAPTER  XIV, 

The  age  of  forgery,  plots,  and  perjury. 

IN  every  age  of  the  world,  some  peculiar  folly 
or  wickedness  has  prevailed,  which  distinguished 
it  from  those  which  preceded,  as  well  as  from 
those  which  followed,  with  nearly  as  much  accu- 
racy as  the  varied  features  of  the  face  distinguish 
one  man  from  another. 

Were  we  called  upon  to  fix  the  peculiar  feature 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  wide  range  of 
the  British  dominions,  we  should,  without  hesita- 
tion, pronounce  it  to  have  been  the  age  of  for- 
gery, perjury,  and  fabricated  plots,  contrived  for 
the  purpose  of  overwhelming  the  innocent  in 
ruin,  and  enriching  malefactors  with  their  spoils.' 

It  is  hardly  credible,  at  the  present  day,  when 
those  dire  passions  that  actuated  so  large  a  por- 
tion of  the  community  in  England  and  Ireland, 
during  that  period,  have  wholly  subsided,  and  are 
now  almost  inconceivable,  what  a  number  of 
these  contrivances  were  employed ;  how  regularly 
they  succeeded  each  other ;  what  mischievous 
consequences  they  produced  ;  and  yet  how  exces- 
sively stupid  the  most  of  them  were.  Many  of 
them,  which  were  devoured  with  greedy  ears  by 

t37f 


290  VINDICUE   HIBERNIC.K. 

the  great  and  little  vulgar,  are  so  ridiculous,  so 
absurd,  and  so  utterly  improbable,  that,  at  the 
present  day,  they  would  not  impose  on  a  gang  of 
swine-herds. 

Previous  to  entering  into  the  examination  and 
detection  of  the  miserable  pretended  conspiracy 
of  1641,  which  led  to  scenes  of  horror,  desola- 
tion, and  massacre  of  the  Irish,  that  chill  the 
blood  in  the  veins,  we  shall  present  the  reader 
with  a  few  facts,  to  satisfy  him  that  the  fabrication 
of  pretended  plots  was  a  regular  trade,  pursued 
upon  a  most  extensive  scale ;  was  one  of  the 
levers  by  which  the  movements  of  the  political 
machine  were  regulated ;  and  that  consistency, 
coherence,  probability,  or  even  possibility,  were 
not  necessary  to  ensure  its  success. 

We  have  already  established  the  efficacy  of 
this  infamous  system,  in  producing  confiscation 
in  Ireland ;  and  how  thousands  were  involved  in 
ruin,  and  their  posterity  for  ages  consigned  to 
poverty,  by  the  dropping  of  a  wretched  catch- 
penny letter.  We  have  shown,  that  after  Tyrone, 
a  nobleman  of  high  grade  and  princely  posses- 
sions among  the  Irish,  had  rendered  important 
services  to  the  state,  and  received  a  wound, 
fighting  in  its  defence  against  his  own  country- 
men, he  was  almost  immediately  charged  with 
a  conspiracy,  on  grounds  the  most  frivolous  and 
contemptible,  merely  from  the  lust  of  spoliating 
his  immense  estate ;  and  that  the  same  vile  course 
was  pursued  with  Shane  O'Neal,  whose  estate 


THE   AGE    OF    PLOTS   AND    PERJURY.         291 

was  finally  confiscated,  after  he  was  basely  assas- 
sinated, at  the  instigation  of  the  lord  deputy,  who 
publicly  paid  the  assassin  the  price  of  his  infamy, 
and  thus  stamped  a  brand  of  eternal  infamy  on 
his  name,  which  all  the  cataracts  of  the  Niagara 
could  never  efface.* 

The  low  herd  of  hardened  wretches,  who  per- 
jured themselves  by  swearing  to  those  plots,  as 
well  as  those  of  the  higher  orders,  equally  har- 
dened, who  suborned  them  for  this  execrable 
purpose,f  felt  no  "  compunctious  visitings"  of 
remorse,  that  torrents  of  blood  were  occasionally 
shed,  through  the  means  of  their  perjuries. 

"  Their  conscience,  wide  as  hell,'1295 

suffered  no  nausea  at  the  immolation  of  hosts  of 
innocent  victims  on  the  bloody  altars  of  their 
ambition,  their  avarice,  and  their  vengeance. 

Many  of  the  instruments  used  on  those  occa- 
sions, were  the  basest  and  most  wicked  of  ma'n- 

*  "  On  a  signal  given,  the  soldiers  rushed  in ;  butchered 
the  wretched  guests ;  and  buried  their  weapons  in  O'Neal. 
The  intelligence  of  his  death  was  conveyed  to  the  lord  deputy 
by  Piers,  who  sent  his  head  to  Dublin,  .and  RECEIVED  ONE 

THOUSAND  MARKS  AS   HIS  REWARD."298 

f  "  Leaders  so  little  scrupulous,  as  to  endeavour,  by  encou- 
raging perjury,  subornation,  lies,  imposture,  and  even  by 
shedding'  innocent  blood^  to  gratify  their  own  furious  ambi- 
tion."297 

295  Shakspeare.  296  Leland,  II.  286,  28 7. 

297  Hume,  IV.  331. 


292  VIND1CLK    HIBERNICJK. 

kind,* — wretches  elaborated,  in  prisons,  in  stews, 
and  other  hot-beds  and  nurseries  of  villany,  to 
the  last  degree  of  turpitude  of  which  man  is 
capable.  Their  stories  were  so  contradictory, 
that  the  falsehood  and  perjury  were  manifest  to 
the  most  cursory  observer :  but  such  was  the 
general  depravity  and  delusion  of  the  times,  and 
such  the  devouring  thirst  for  the  blood  of  the 
victims,  that  no  profligacy  in  the  witnesses,  no 
contradiction,  no  improbability,  no  impossibility 
in  the  evidence,  no  degree  of  immaculate  inno- 
cence in  the  objects  of  their  rage  and  malice, 
couM  save  them  from  destruction.  Accusation 
and  condemnation  were,  in  almost  every  instance, 
synonimous  terms. 

*  "  Gates,  the  informer  of  this  dreadful  plot,  was  himself 
THE  MOST  INFAMOUS  OF  MANKIND.     He  was 

the  son  of  an  Anabaptist  preacher,  chaplain  to  colonel  Pride  ; 
but  having  taken  orders  in  the  church,  he  had  been  settled  in 
a  small  living  by  the  duke  of  Norfolk.  He  had  been  indicted 
for  perjury,  and  by  some  means  had  escaped.  He  was  after- 
wards a  chaplain  on  board  the  fleet,  whence  he  had  been  dis- 
missed, on  complaint  of  some  unnatural  practices,  not  fit  to  be 
named."298 

"  Such  bountiful  encouragement  brought  forth  new  wit- 
nesses. William  Bedlow,  a  man,  if  possible,  more  infamous 
than  Oates,  appeared  next  upon  the  stage.  He  was  of  very 
low  birth  ;  had  been  noticed  for  several  cheats,  and  even  thefts; 
had  travelled  over  many  parts  of  Europe,  under  borrowed 
names  ;  and  frequently  passed  himself  for  a  man  of  quality, 
and  had  endeavoured,  by  a  variety  of  lies  and  contrivances, 
to  prey  upon  the  ignorant  and  unwary"*99 

298  Hume,  IV.  315.  299  Idem,  322. 


THE   AGE    OF   PLOTS   AND   PERJURY.         293 

In  those  days,  conspirators  were  accustomed, 
if  we  believe  the  depositions  of  some  of  the  plot- 
contrivers,  to  stand  in  the  open  streets  and  high- 
ways, and  converse  about  their  conspiracies  and 
treasons,  as  publicly  and  unreservedly  as  at  pre- 
sent we  convey  to  each  other  the  intelligence  of 
the  price  of  stocks,  the  state  of  the  weather,  or 
any  of  those  important  nothings  which  form  so 
large  a  portion  of  what  is  called  conversation. 
This  free  and  easy  system  was  quite  convenient 
to  the  informers,  as  it  saved  them  much  trouble 
in  searching  for  evidence. 

On  one  occasion,  the  English  House  of  Lords 
was  alarmed  by  the  important  information  given 
by  an  Italian,  that  he  heard  an  Irishman,  in  the 
street,  inform  a  certain  Francisco,  IN  ITALIAN, 
that  a  plot  was  laid  to  kill  some  members  of  that 
House,  particularly  the  earls  of  Northumberland, 

Essex,  Holland,  £jc.*  The  House  of  Lords  attach- 

• 

*  "  Jan.  11, 1641-2.  This  day,  one  Francis  Moor,  an  Italian, 
gave  in  an  information  to  the  House  of  Lords,  That  yesterday 
he  stood  talking  with  an  Irishman,  who  lives  with  the  lord 
viscount  Loftus,  in  the  street,  and  overheard  ONE  BRIAN 
KELLY,  AN  IRISHMAN,  servant  to  the  earl  of  Arundel,  SPEAK 
IN  ITALIAN  [!]  to  one  Signior  Francisco,  an  Italian,  and  say, 
That  there  was  a  plot  laid  to  kill  some  lords  of  the  Parliament ; 
and  in  particular  named  the  earl  of  Northumberland,  the  earl 
of  Essex,  the  earl  of  Holland,  the  earl  of  Pembroke,  and  the 
earl  of  Leicester. 

"  Hereupon,  it  is  ordered,  That  the  said  Brian  Kelly  and 
Signior  Francisco  shall  be  forthwith  apprehended,  and  attach- 
ed by  the  gentleman  usher  attending  this  house,  and  brought 
as  delinquents  to  the  bar,  and  charged  with  the  words  ;  Kelly 


294  VINDICO;  HIBERNICA;. 

ed  great  importance  to  the  affair,  and  summoned 
the  parties  to  the  bar :  but  it  ended  in  smoke, 
after  the  purposes  for  which  it  had  been  fabri- 
cated were  answered. 

The  Irishman  being  so  polite  as  to  speak  to 
his  brother  conspirator  in  Italian,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  latter,  not  to  be  outdone  in 
politeness,  replied  in  Gaelic  or  Irish.  But,  as  the 
historian  is  silent  on  the  subject,  I  would  not  be 
understood  as  committing  myself,  by  any  thing 
more  than  suggesting  it  as  plausible, — leaving  it 
to  the  better  judgment  of  the  reader  to  decide. 

But,  of  all  the  informers  of  those  days,  a  cer- 
tain Thomas  Beal,  a  taylor,  merited  the  palm. 
None  of  the  confraternity  could  stand  a  compari- 
son with  him.  He  gave  minute  details  of  a  plot, 
in  which  one  hundred  and  eight  persons  had 
engaged  to  murder  as  many  members  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  wages  they  were  to  receive  for  this 
pleasant  and  amusing  business,  were  very  mode- 
rate, particularly  for  the  commons,  who  were 
not  valued  at  more  than  twenty  per  cent,  of  the 
lords.  The  latter  were  to  be  paid  for  at  the  rate 
of  ten  pounds  per  man :  but  the  poor  members 
of  the  Lower  House  were  valued  at  only  forty 
shillings.  The  feats  were  to  be  performed  as 
the  members  were  coming  down  stairs  from  the 

denied  that  he  ever  spake  any  such  words.  Thereupon  Moor 
was  called  in  to  confront  him,  and  upon  oath  averred  what  he 
had  formerly  informed."300 

300  Nalson,  II.  843. 


THE  AGE  OF  PLOTS  AND  PERJURY.    295 

Parliament  House,  or  taking  their  coaches,  or 
going  into  their  lodgings.* 

*  "  House  of  Lords,  Nov.  15,  1641.  Thomas  Beal,  a 
taylor,  dwelling  in  White-Cross  street,  was  called  in,  and 
made  a  relation  of  the  whole  plot,  with  all  the  circumstances, 
which  were  as  follows : 

"  That  this  day,  at  twelve  of  the  clock,  he  went  into  the 
fields,  near  the  Pot-house  :  and  walking  over  a  private  bank, 
he  heard  some  talking,  but  did  not  see  them  at  first ;  but  find- 
ing them  by  the  voice,  he  coming  within  hearing  of  them,  un- 
derstood they  talked  of  state  affairs  :  and  going  nearer  them, 
he  heard  one  of  them  say,  that  it  was  a  wicked  thing,  that  the 
last  plot  did  not  take  ;  but  if  this  goes  on,  as  is  in  hand  and 
intended,  they  shall  all  be  made.  Heard  them  say,  that  there 
were  an  hundred  and  eight  men  appointed,  to  kill  an  hundred 
and  eight  members  of  the  Parliament,  every  one  his  man ; 
some  were  lords,  and  others  were  to  be  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  all  Puritans  ;  and  the  sacrament  was  to  be  ad- 
ministered to  the  hundred  and  eight  men,  for  performing  of 
this ;  and  those  that  killed  the  lords  were  to  have  ten  pounds, 
and  those  that  killed  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
forty  shillings.  That  Gorges,  being  the  thirty-seventh  man, 
had  taken  the  sacrament  on  Saturday,  to  kill  one  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  had  received  forty  shillings.  That  one 
Phillips  coming  to  London  on  Sunday  night  late,  was  charged 
to  be  at  my  lord's  chamber,  where  was  only  my  lord,  father 
Jones,  and  father  Andrews  :  he  also  had  his  charge,  and  five 
more  with  him,  he  being  the  hundred  and  eighth  man,  and  the 
last,  as  he  thought. 

"  That  Phillips  had  been  iu  Warwickshire  and  Bucking- 
hamshire, with  letters ;  and  that  he  delivered  letters  to  Mr. 
Sheldon,  who  gave  him  his  dinner,  and  a  piece  for  his  pains, 
charging  him  to  make  haste  to  London  again,  and  giving  him 
letters  to  deliver  to  my  lord. 

"  That  Dick  Jones  was  appointed  to  kill  that  rascally  Puri- 
tan Pym ;  and  that  four  tradesmen  were  to  kill  the  Puritan 
citizens  which  were  Parliament  men. 


296  VIND1CJJE    HIBERNIC.&. 

This  plot,  which  highly  alarmed  both  lords 
and  commons,  is  one  of  those  which,  as  we  have 

"  That  on  the  same  day,  being  the  18th  of  this  month,  when 
the  city  shall  be  in  a  tumult,  there  shall  be  risings  in  six  seve- 
ral parts  of  this  land,  by  the  Papists ;  viz.  in  Warwickshire, 
Worcestershire,  Buckinghamshire,  Lancashire,  and  two  other 
places  which  he  remembers  not. 

"  That  those  that  were  to  kill  the  lords  were  brave  gallants 
in  their  scarlet  coats,  and  had  received  every  man  ten  pounds 
a-piece ;  and  when  that  was  gone,  they  might  come  and  fetch 
more. 

"  That  this  was  to  be  done  either  coming- down  stairs,  or 
taking  their  coaches,  or  entering  into  their  lodgings,  or  any 
other  way,  as  they  should  see  opportunity. 

u  That  although  all  were  not  killed,  yet  the  tumult  would  be 
so  great,  that  it  would  prevent  sending  to  Ireland,  and  that 
was  father  Andrews  his  wit,  to  prevent  sending  thither ;  be- 
cause if  they  prevailed  there,  they  should  not  have  cause  to 
fear  here."301 

"  Nov.  16,  1641.  The  lords  and  commons  'assembled  in 
Parliament,  having  received  informations  of  dangerous  de- 
signs and  practices,  by  priests  and  Jesuits,  and  ill-affected 
persons,  to  disturb  the  peace  of  this  state,  and  the  proceedings 
of  Parliament,  and  to  attempt  upon  the  persons  of  many  of  the 
members  of  both  Houses ;  and  well  know  that  there  is  no 
way  to  prevent  the  mischief  which  the  malice  of  such  men 
may  suddenly  bring  upon  the  realm,  to  the  utter  subversion 
of  our  religion,  laws,  and  liberties,  but  by  putting  the  kingdom 
into  a  posture  of  defence,  and  so  to  be  ready,  upon  all  occa- 
sions, to  oppose  force  to  force."302 

"  The  commons  acquainted  their  lordships,  that  they  have 
discovered  some  things  further  concerning  the  plot  which  was 
related  by  Beal ;  for,  upon  examination,  they  are  informed, 
that  there  are  two  such  priests  as  father  Jones  and  father 
Andrews ;  Jones,  they  understand,  is  here  in  town,  at  the  earl 

101  Nalson,  II.  646.  302  Idem,  649. 


THE   AGE   OF   PLOTS   AND   PERJURY.         297 

stated,  would  now  hardly  impose  upon  a  gang 
of  swine-herds.  The  idea  of  a  large  body  of 
" brave  gallants"  not,  as  Sir  John  Falstaff  says, 
" in  Kendal  green"  but  " in  scarlet  coats"  for 
the  purpose  of  rendering  themselves  conspicuous, 
engaged  to  poignard  an  equal  number  of  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  coming  out  of  the  house,  or 
going  into  their  carriages,  the  major  part  for  only 
forty  shillings  a  head,  would  form  an  admirable 
episode  in  Baron  Munchausen.  But,  absurd  and 
ridiculous  as  it  was,  the  "  greedy  maw"  of  public 
delusion  and  prejudice  cheerfully  swallowed  it, 
as  suitable  refection  for  its  devouring  appetite. 

A  plot  for  which  Sir  Henry  Beddingfield  was 
apprehended,  is  more  absurd  and  nonsensical 
than  Beal's,  though  not  so  much  detailed.  It  is 
difficult  to  conjecture  what  it  means,  from  the 
deposition*  of  the  informer  who  communicated 

of  Worcester's  house ;  and  Andrews  is  described  to  be  near 
fifty  years  of  age,  and  uses  to  come  much  to  Sir  Basil  Brook's 
house. 

"  The  House  of  Commons  further  thinks  fit,  that  a  declara- 
tion be  made,  that  whosoever  of  the  hundred  and  eight  men, 
designed  to  do  this  mischief,  shall  come  in  and  discover  the 
same,  both  Houses  will  be  humble  suitors  to  the  king  that  they 
may  be  pardoned,  and  they  shall  be  well  rewarded."303 

*  "  William  Shales,  sergeant  of  the  foot  company  under  the 
command  of  Sir  Arthur  Loftus,  knight,  saith,  That  about  the 
latter  end  of  April  last,  he  being  then  in  Norfolk,  in  Oxbo- 
rough  Hall,  in  the  house  of  Sir  Henry  Beddingfield,  the  said 
Sir  Henry,  hearing  that  this  examinant  was  lately  come  out  of 
Ireland,  sent  for  him  into  his  garden,  whither  when  he  came, 

303  Nalson,  II.  649. 
38 


298  VINDICIJE  HIBERNIC-E. 

the  important  information.  We  state  it  merely 
to  show  the  ridiculous  grounds  on  which  these 
fabrications  rested. 

A  plot  was  fabricated,  of  which  the  pretended 
object  was  to  kill  Charles  II.     Lord  Castlemain 

he  found  the  said  Sir  Henry  walking  with  one  Poole,  (whom 
this  examinant  supposeth  was  a  priest)  and  saith,  that  as  soon 
as  he  came  into  the  said  garden,  the  said  Sir  Henry  asked  him 
whether  he  knew  how  the  state  of  Ireland  then  stood  ?  To 
which  the  examinant  said,  that  he  thought  that  all  things  were 
quiet  and  at  peace  there.  Why  (quoth  Sir  Henry)  doth  the 
army  then  do  nothing  ?  To  which  the  examinant  replied,  That 
they  carried  themselves  quietly,  and  that  any  man  might  walk 
in  Ireland  with  a  thousand  pounds,  and  a  wand  only  in  his 
hand.  He  saith  also,  that  the  said  Sir  Henry  told  him,  That 
he  was  about  to  take  a  house  in  Kilkenny,  of  one  of  the  But- 
lers, for  that  there  was  no  safety  in  England  for  any  of  his 
religion ;  and  asked  of  the  examinant,  whether  there  were  any 
good  hawking  thereabouts  ?  To  which  the  examinant  said  that 
there  was.  Then  the  said  Sir  Henry  said,  That  now  his  mind 
was  altered,  and  that  he  meant  to  stay  in  England;  and  added, 
That  he  did  believe,  that  before  Christmas  day  next,  there 
should  be  seen  such  combustions  in  England  and  Ireland,  as 
the  like  were  never  seen  before ;  and  thereupon  cursed  the 
Scots  as  the  authors  of  these  troubles. 

WILLIAM  SHALES. 
Jurat.  Coram  nobis. 
JAMES  W'ARE, 
ROBERT  MEREDITH. 

"  Whereupon  it  was  ordered,  That  Sir  Henry  Beddingfield 
should  be  sent  for  in  safe  custody  by  the  gentleman  usher  of 
the  House ;  and  none  permitted  to  speak  with  him,  but  in  the 
presence  of  the  messenger ;  and  that  his  study  should  be  seal- 
ed up  by  the  two  next  justices  of  the  peace,  till  the  further 
pleasure  of  the  House  be  known."304 

304  Nalson,  II.  661. 


THE   AGE    OF   PLOTS   AND    PERJURY.         299 

was  among  the  parties  accused.305  The  details 
were  of  the  most  absurd  and  incredible  character. 
On  the  trial,  the  principal  evidence  was  one 
Dangerfield,  a  most  profligate  and  worthless  vil- 
lain.* There  were  sixteen  records  of  convictions 
produced  in  court,  to  prove  that  he  was  not  a 
competent  witness.306  He  had  been  convicted  of 
felony,  had  broken  prison,  been  outlawed,  brand- 
ed in  the  hand,f  been  four  times  convicted  of 
forging  the  coin,  once  as  a  common  cheat,  been 
each  time  put  in  the  pillory,  and  been  guilty  of 
almost  every  species  of  crime :  but  such  was  the 
abandoned  character  of  the  court,  so  completely 

*  "  The  nation  had  gotten  so  much  into  the  vein  of  credulity, 
and  every  necessitous  villain  was  so  much  incited  by  the  suc- 
cess of  Oates  and  Bedlow,  that  even  during  the  prorogation 
the  people  were  not  allowed  to  remain  in  tranquillity.  There 
was  one  Dangerfield,  a  fellow  who  had  been  burned  in  the  hand 
for  crimes,  transported,  whipped,  pilloried  four  times,  fined 
for  cheats,  outlawed  for  felony,  convicted  of  coining,  exposed  to 
all  the  public  infamy  which  the  laws  could  inflict  on  the  basest 
and  most  shameful  enormities.  The  credulity  of  the  people, 
and  the  humour  of  the  times,  enabled  even  this  man  to  be- 
come a  person  of  consequence."307 

f  On  this  trial,  a  ludicrous  opinion  was  given  by  the  judges 
of  the  Common  Pleas,  who  were  consulted  by  lord  Raymond, 
whether  a  pardon,  which  had  been  granted  to  Dangerfield, 
rendered  his  evidence  admissible.  "  They  say,"  states  lord 
Raymond,  "  that  if  he  had  been  convicted  of  felony,  and  not 
burnt  in  the  hand,  the  pardon  would  not  have  set  him  upright : 
but  being  convicted  and  burnt  in  the  hand,  they  suppose  he  is 
a  witness."30* 

305  State  Trials,  VII.  1067  306  Idem,  1084,  1102-3. 

307  Hume,  IV.  349.  308  State  Trials,  VII.  1090. 


300  VINDICLE    HIBERNICB. 

poisoned  were  the  streams  of  justice,  and  so 
violent  was  the  rage  against  the  accused,  that 
these  solid  objections  were  all  over-ruled,  and 
his  evidence  received  as  if  he  had  been  the  most 
immaculate  character  in  the  nation. 

In  a  virulent  and  fabulous  book,  published 
under  the  title  of  "Memoirs  of  Ireland,  from 
the  Restoration  to  the  present  time,"  which  con- 
tains almost  as  many  lies  as  sentences,  there  is  a 
curious  account  of  one  of  those  wonderful  plots. 
It  is  quite  an  original ;  and  deserves  to  be  brought 
to  light  once  more,  out  of  compliment  to  the 
talents  of  the  fabricator  who  could  devise,  and 
to  the  sagacity  of  the  stupid  public  which  could 
digest,  such  a  tale. 

It  states,  that  a  massacre  of  the  Protestants  in 
Ireland  was  intended,  anno  1670  :  preparatory  to 
which,  "  the  priests  ordered  their  congregations 
at  mass,"  to  fix  "  over  their  doors  a  cross  made  of 
straw."  This  cross  was  to  be  a  mark  to  the 
assassins  not  to  molest  the  inhabitants,  "  when 
the  bloody  massacre  was  to  be  perpetrated."  All 
"  the  men,  women,  and  children"  in  the  houses 
devoid  of  the  straw  cross, 

"  God  save  the  mark  !" 

were  "  to  be  butchered,  and  the  houses  burned." 
This  is  very  amusing,  truly  ;  and  a  mere  matter 
of  course.  But  the  enigmatical  part  of  the  plot 
remains.  The  crosses  "  were  so  little,"  that 
"  the  Protestants  took  no  notice  of  them"  by  day- 
light, although  the  cut-throats,  to  whom  they 


THE  AGE  OF  PLOTS  AND  PERJURY.    30  i 

were  to  afford  directions,  were  to  be  governed 
by  them  at  night,  as  that  time  alone  was  fit  for 
such  deeds  of  blood.  And,  although  the  direc- 
tions had  been  given  from  the  altar,  throughout 
the  kingdom,  "  the  matter  was  carried  with  so 
much  secrecy"  that  " the  priests  themselves" 
were  ignorant  of  what  was  meant,  and  "  believed 
that  it  was  designed  to  bless  the  people's  houses." 
And  this  miserable  fabrication  was  credited  ;  ex- 
cited a  vast  deal  of  alarm  among  "  the  Protes- 
tant ascendency  ;"  and  afforded  a  pretext  for  the 
further  oppression  and  persecution  of  the,  Roman 
Catholics : 

"  The  priests,  by  directions  from  their  superiors,  ordered 
their  several  congregations,  at  mass,  that,  at  such  a  time,  every 
Roman  Catholic  should  fix  over  their  doors  A  CROSS  MADE 
OF  STRAW.  The  people  were  curious  to  understand  the  rea- 
son of  this  order ;  but  the  matter  zvas  carried  with  so  much 
secrecy,  that  the  priests  themselves,  it  is  believed,  knew  no 
more  than  that  it  was  designed  to  bless  the  people's  houses. 
This  was  generally  performed :  and,  at  the  same  time,  vast 
multitudes  of  priests  came  from  beyond  sea ;  who,  as  appears 
by  the  sequel,  were  better  acquainted  with  the  bottom  of  this 
black  and  damnable  intrigue,  than  generally  the  poor  ignorant 
priests  of  Ireland  were,  to  whom  the  hellish  conclave  at  Rome 
did  not  think  fit  to  communicate  a  matter  of  this  private  and 
great  importance.  The  plot  was  formed  after  the  ensuing 
manner.  This  signal  of  the  cross  was  to  distinguish  the  Pa- 
fists  from  the  Protestants,  when  THE  BLOODY  MASSA- 
CRE WAS  TO  BE  PERPETRATED.  Where  no  cross 
was  found  on  the  door,  all  within  the  house,  men,  women,  and 
children,  were  to  be  butchered,  on  a  certain  day,  and  their  houses 
burnt.  Intimation  of  this  design  being  given  to  the  magis- 
tracy, search  was  made ;  and  crosses  accordingly  found  at 


302  V1NDICUE    IllllHKNICJL. 

most  of  the  Papists1  doors  in  the  province  of  Munster.  They 
were  so  little,  that  the  Protestants  took  no  notice  of  them. 
The  priest,  who  discovered  the  plot  first,  ran  away,  and  was 
no  more  heard  of."309 

The  pretences  of  plots  and  conspiracies  were 
constantly  employed,  throughout  the  century.* 
The  public  mind  was  kept  in  unceasing  fermen- 
tation ;f  which  was  excited  to  the  highest  degree, 
when  any  object  of  Irish  oppression  or  degrada- 
tion was  to  be  accomplished,  and  the  excitement 
was  always  proportioned  to  the  magnitude  of  that 

*  "It  was  thought  politic  to  have  recourse  to  one  [a  sham  plot] 
in  the  present  exigence.  For  this  purpose  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  inquire  into  informations  against  the  Irish,  and 
the  danger  of  the  kingdom  from  them.  Informations  of  one  sort 
or  other  will  never  be  wanting,  when  it  is  the  interest  of  men 
in  power  to  encourage  them  :  and  they  are  sure  to  be  received 
with  favour,  and stv allowed  without  examination,  however  tri- 
fling, ridiculous,  and  improbable."310 

f  "  They  revived  the  rumours  of  new  plots  and  conspiracies  ; 
received  informations  of  many  dark  designs  and  suspicious 
proceedings  of  the  Irish ;  alarmed  the  government  with  the 
danger  of  public  commotions ;  and,  though  all  their  industry 
could  produce  no  material  discoveries,  yet  it  served  their 
purpose  of  loading  an  obnoxious  party  with  additional  odium, 
at  a  time  when  they  were  to  contend  with  them  for  estates 
and  settlements."311 

"  Reports  [were]  spread  by  these  agents  and  their  creatures, 
as  if  the  Irish  Roman  Catholics  were  ready  to  raise  a  new 
rebellion  in  that  country.  This  was  a  thing  impossible  to  be 
conceived  by  any  body  that  knew  the  real  state  and  miserable 
condition  of  those  people  at  this  time  in  Ireland."312 

3C9  Memoirs  of  Ireland,  15.  31°  Carte,  II.  223. 

'"  Leland,  IV.  125.  3I2  Carte,  II.  205. 


THE   AGE    OF   PLOTS   AND   PERJURY.         303 

object.*     In  no  instance  did  this  system  fail  of 
complete  success. 

*  "  The  house,  to  throw  an  odium  upon  that  nation,  and  pre- 
judice them  in  the  opinion  of  the  world,  as  well  as  of  his  ma- 
jesty, before  whom  their  all  lay  at  stake,  would  needs  infer  a 
formed  design  of  an  insurrection.  But  the  whole  kingdom 
knew  they  were  in  no  condition  to  rebel,  nor  was  it  likely  they 
should  attempt  it  at  a  time,  when  they  were  suing  for  grace 
and  favour  from  his  majesty.  Sir  M.  Eustace,  the  lord  chan- 
cellor, a  man  of  great  virtue  and  integrity,  who  wished  well  to 
a  true  loyal  English  interest,  and  not  to  a  pretended  one  of 
disaffected  and  unconformable  upstarts,  was  persuaded  of  the 
injustice,  as  well  as  the  design  of  this  charge  against  the  Irish; 
and,  to  discover  what  ground  there  was  for  it,  directed  the 
judges  in  their  circuits  to  cause  the  matter  to  be  inquired  into 
by  the  grand  juries  of  the  several  counties  through  which  they 
passed.  The  finding  of  those  juries  was  alike  in  all  places ; 
there  being  a  great  calm  every  -where,  no  preparation  for  a 
rising,  nor  so  much  as  a  rumour  of  any  new  troubles.  Nothing 
could  be  more  frivolous  and  void  of  proof,  than  the  paper 
which  the  commons  drew  up  on  this  subject."313 

"  These  proceedings  insinuating  the  design  of  a  new  rebel- 
lion, were  founded  upon  very  slight  grounds ;  but  there  are 
certain  subjects  of  so  odious  or  unpopular  a  nature,  that  few 
men  dare,  in  public  assemblies,  offer  to  stem  the  torrent,  and 
speak  their  minds  about  them  with  freedom.  Of  this  nature 
•was  every  motion,  expressing  a  distrust  of  the  Papists,  and 
loading  them  with  rebellious  designs  ;  so  that  though  the  let- 
ters ivhich  served  as  a  foundation  to  their  votes,  rvere  a  mere 
contrivance  and  PALPABLE  FORGERY,  nobody  (except  the  lord 
Strabane)  seems  to  have  expressed  their  dissatisfaction  as  to 
the  proof  and  truth  of  them,  or  to  have  made  any  attempt  to 
vindicate  the  Papists  from  a  charge  so  weakly  supported,  and 
so  very  improbable  in  the  present  situation  of  the  kingdom."314 


313 


Carte,  II.  231.  3H  Idem,  238. 


304  VINDICUE  HIBERNICJE. 

For  a  full  detail  of  this  hideous  state  of 
things,  which  Leland  appropriately  styles  "  THE 
MELANCHOLY  PROGRESS  OF  PERJURY 
AND  SUBORNATION,"313  the  reader  is  referred 
to  that  writer,316  and  to  the  Life  of  the  duke  of 
Ormond.317 

In  the  year  1681,  there  was  a  wonderful  alarm 
excited  in  England,  on  the  subject  of  an  intended 
insurrection  and  massacre  in  Ireland.*  The  most 
terrific  accounts  were  transmitted  from  the  latter 
to  the  former  kingdom ;  and  warrants  were  issued 
for  apprehending  the  supposed  conspirators  :  but 
this,  like  so  many  other  of  the  similar  contri- 
vances, already  noticed,  manifested  as  much  folly 
as  fraud.  The  four  leaders  of  this  tremendous 
conspiracy,  for  whom  those  warrants  were  issued, 
were,  Richard  Talbot,  lord  Mountgarret  and  his 
son,  and  a  colonel  Peppard.318  Talbot  was  appre- 
hended ;  and,  being  examined,  there  was  nothing 
discovered  that  could  warrant  holding  him  in 
custody  :319  of  lord  Mountgarret's  son,  no  further 

*  "  January  6th,  1681.  Resolved,  by  the  lords  spiritual  and 
temporal,  in  Parliament  assembled,  that  they  do  declare,  that 
they  are  fully  satisfied,  that  there  now  is,  and  for  divers  years 
last  past  hath  been,  a  horrid  and  treasonable  plot  contrived 
and  carried  on  by  those  of  the  Popish  religion  in  Ireland,  for 
massacremg  the  English,  and  subverting  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion, and  the  ancient  established  government  of  that  king- 
dom ;  to  which  their  lordships  desire  the  concurrence  of  this 
house."320 

315  Leland,  IV.  193.  31fl  Idem,  188-193. 

317  Carte,  II.  516,  517.  318  Leland,  IV.  185. 

319  Ibid.  32°  Memoirs  of  Ireland,  25. 


THE   AGE    OF   PLOTS   AND   PERJURY.         305 

mention  is  made  by  Leland  or  Carte :  and,  to 
throw  the  affair  into  complete  ridicule,  and  dis- 
play its  wickedness  and  folly,  there  was  no  such 
person  to  be  found  as  colonel  Peppard ;  and 
lord  Mountgarret,  who  was  represented  as  so  ex- 
tremely dangerous,  and  so  active  a  conspirator, 
was  "  of  the  age  of  fourscore  years,  bed-ridden, 
and  in  a  state  of  dotage  ;"321  most  admirable  qua- 
lities  for  a  conspirator  ! 

A  considerable  portion  of  the  apparatus  of  this 
plot  business  consisted  in  the  framing  anonymous 
letters  on  the  plan  that  succeeded  so  well  against 
the  earls  Tyrone  and  Tyrconnel.322  They  were 
sometimes  sent  to  gentlemen's  houses,*  some- 
times dropped  in  the  streets,  and  were  always 
full  of  throat-cutting,  conflagrations,  rapes,  and 

*  "  To  the  worshipful  and  my  much  honoured  friend  Orlando 
Bridgman,  Esq.  a  burgess  of  Parliament,  at  his  chamber  in  the 
Inner  Temple,  present. 
"  Sir, 

"  We  are  your  friends ;  these  are  to  advise  you  to  look  to 
yourself,  and  to  advise  others  of  my  lord  Strafford's  friends 
to  take  heed,  lest  they  be  included  in  the  common  calamity  : 
our  advice  is,  to  be  gone,  to  pretend  business,  till  the  great 
hubbub  be  past ;  withdraw,  lest  you  suffer  -with  the  Puritans  : 
we  intreat  you  to  send  away  the  inclosed  letter  to  Mr.  Ander- 
ton,  inclosed  to  some  trusty  friend,  that  it  may  be  carried 
safely,  without  suspicion,  for  it  concerns  the  common  safety. 
So  desire  your  friends  in  Co  vent- Garden. 
"  January  4th,  1641-2."323 

321  Leland,  IV.  185.  322  Supra,  168. 

323  Nalson,  II.  836. 

39 


306  V1NDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

rapine.  They  never  failed  of  exciting  great 
alarms,  and  were  always  brought  forward  to 
serve  some  particular  purpose  of  the  moment. 
Few  sessions  of  the  Irish  Parliament  took  place, 
which  were  not  marked  by  some  of  those  pre- 
tended plots.  We  presume  that  we  have  adduced 
evidence  enough  of  them,  and  of  the  execrable 
spirit  by  which  they  were  engendered.  We  shall, 
however,  as  the  point  to  be  established  is  of  vital 
importance,  annex  a  few  more  instances,  the  first 
of  which  is  taken  from  the  "  Memoirs  of  Ireland, 
from  the  Restoration,"*  and  slightly  referred 

*  "  Their  just  and  terrible  apprehensions  were  increased  by 
a  letter,  dated  the  third  of  December,  1688,  sent  to  the  earl  of 
Mount- Alexander,  intimating  a  design  of  destroying  the  Pro- 
testants on  the  Sunday  following.  This  letter  was  spread  over 
the  kingdom  ;  and  one  cannot  conceive  the  horrible  fright  it 
put  them  all  into.  The  contents  of  it  were  as  follow  :324 

"  A  Copy  of  the  Letter  dispersed  about  the  Massacre,  said  to 
be  designed  on  the  9th  of  December,  1688. 

Decemb.  3,  1688. 
"  Good  my  lord, 

"  I  have  written  to  let  you  know,  that  all  our  Irishmen 
through  Ireland  are  sworn,  that  on  the  9th  day  of  this  month, 
being  Sunday  next,  they  are  to  fall  on,  to  kill  and  murther  man, 
"wife,  and  child,  and  to  spare  none;  and  I  desire  your  lordship 
to  take  care  of  yourself,  and  all  others  that  are  adjudged  by 
our  men  to  be  heads  ;  for  whoever  of  them  can  kill  any  of 
you,  is  to  have  a  captain's  place.  So  my  desire  to  your  ho- 
nour is  to  look  to  yourself,  and  to  give  other  noblemen  warn- 
ing, and  go  not  out  at  night  or  day  without  a  good  guard  with 
you ;  and  let  no  Irishman  come  near  you,  whatever  he  be. 
This  is  all  from  him,  who  is  your  friend  and  father's  friend, 

324  Memoirs,  87. 


THE   AGE    OF    PLOTS   AND    PERJURY.         307 

to  above,  in  page  168.  With  these  we  shall 
conclude  this  slight  sketch  of  the  odious  history 
of  letter-dropping,*  forgery,  and  perjury. 

One  serious  reflection  here  forces  itself  on  the 
mind.     How  awful  and  deplorable  must  have 

and  will  be,  though  I  dare  not  be  known  as  yet,  for  fear  of  my 
life. 

"  Direct  this  with  care  and  haste 
"  To  my  lord  Montgomery.325 

*'  His  lordship  sent  this  letter  to  Dublin,  with  several  co- 
pies of  it ;  and  copies  of  it  were  also  sent  to  all  parts  of  the 
kingdom.  It  arrived  at  Dublin  on  Friday,  and  THE  DAY 
OF  SLAUGHTER  WAS  TO  BE  TWO  DAYS  AFTER; 
the  terror  of  which  was  so  great  amongst  the  English,  that 
about  three  thousand  souls  got  away  on  the  Saturday.  There 
happened  to  be  a  great  many  ships  in  the  harbour  at  that  time, 
and  they  were  all  so  crammed,  that  the  passengers  were  in 
danger  of  being  stifled."326 

*  "  There  was  dropped  in  the  streets  a  declaration  of  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  framed  upon  presumption  that  the  design 
had  been  effected,  and  to  the  like  purpose  as  is  before  remem- 
bered.327 

"  The  more  violent  attempted  to  drive  die  duke  of  Ormond 
from  his  course  of  moderate  measures,  by  alarming  him  with 
fears  of  assassination.  Letters  were  dropped  in  Dublin,  inti- 
mating a  design  of  this  nature,  and  several  pretended  to  give 
an  account  of  what  they  heard  or  suspected  of  this  design."33* 

"  It  had  been  a  common  artifice,  just  after  the  king's  restora- 
tion, TO  DROP  SUGH  LETTERS  IN  THE  STREETS 
AND  HIGHWAYS,  IN  ORDER  TO  RENDER  THE 
IRISH  ODIOUS."329 

325  Memoirs,  87,  King,  338.  326  Memoirs,  87. 

327  Whitelock,  47.       328  Carte,  II.  481.       329  Idem,  239. 


308  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

been  the  situation  of  the  Roman  Catholics  of 
Ireland,  forming  the  great  mass  of  the  nation, 
when  their  happiness,  their  security,  nay,  their 
liberties  and  their  lives,  lay  at  the  mercy  of  any 
miscreant  that  could  fabricate  such  letters  as  that 
sent  to  lord  Mount-Alexander,  which,  according 
to  the  account  of  the  virulent  writer  of  the 
"  History  of  Ireland,  from  the  Restoration  to  the 
present  time,"  set  the  whole  kingdom  in  a  flame! 
And  let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  that  every  such 
letter,  every  rumour  of  a  conspiracy,  was  intend- 
ed to  introduce,  and  did  produce,  some  act  to 
violate  the  rights,  or  depredate  on  the  property, 
of  those  persecuted  religionists. 

We  have  asserted,  that  the  witnesses  were 
guilty  of  the  most  manifest  perjury.  Let  us  add, 
that  the  English  judiciary,  although  so  extrava- 
gantly eulogized,  was  then  in  so  deplorable  a 
state, — so  lost  were  the  judges  to  every  sense 
of  honour  and  rectitude, — and  so  sealed  was  the 
fate  of  the  miserable  men  brought — not  to  trial, 
but  condemnation,  that  the  evidence  of  perjurers 
was  received,  in  capital  cases,  and  was  allowed 
to  hurry  the  victims  to  the  gallows, 

"  With  all  their  sins  and  imperfections  on  their  heads." 

The  reader  is  requested  to  ponder  on  the 
following  statement ;  and  if  he  do  not  feel  a  holy 
horror  at  such  monstrous  injustice,  then  ought 
he  to  put  this  book  in  the  fire,  as  unworthy  of  a 
man  of  his  mind,  and,  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  feast 


THE   AGE    OF   PLOTS   AND   PERJURY.         309 

on  the  garbage  of  history  to  be  found  in  Temple 
and  Borlase, — par  nobile  fratrum. 

Seven  priests  were  indicted  together  at  the 
Old  Bailey,  in  the  year  1679,  for  treason,  in 
exercising  their  sacerdotal  functions  in  England, 
contrary  to  the  statute,  which  declared  this  a 
capital  offence.  The  principal  evidence  against 
them  was  one  Bedlow,  who  was,  according  to 
the  testimony  of  Hume,330  a  nefarious  villain, 
of  the  most  blasted  character,  whose  evidence 
should  not  have  been  taken  against  a  notorious 
felon.  On  the  trial  of  L.  Anderson,  the  first  of 
the  number,  Bedlow  was  detected,  in  open  court, 
in  a  most  manifest  and  flagrant  perjury.  He  had 
sworn  that  Anderson  was  the  son  of  a  gentleman 
in  Oxfordshire,  and  that  HE  KNEW  HIM  AND 
HIS  FATHER  WELL.  The  lord  chief  baron, 
who  happened  to  be  then  in  court,  was  acquaint- 
ed with  the  accused,  who  immediately  appealed 
to  him,  to  prove  that  he  was  the  son  of  a  gentle- 
man in  Lincolnshire;  which  the  baron  accordingly 
testified.  The  case-hardened  Bedlow,  no  ways 
abashed,  stated  that  he  had  his  information,  as  to 
the  place  of  Anderson's  birth,  FROM  MY  LORD 
PRIVY-SEAL'S  NEPHEW  ;  notwithstanding  the  atro- 
cious villain  had,  a  few  minutes  before,  positively 
sworn  that  he  knew  him  well.* 

*  "Bedlow.  He  is  a  priest  and  an  Englishman,  if  his  mo- 
ther was  honest,  and  he  honestly  born  :  for  he  is  Mr.  Ander- 
son's son,  of  OXFORDSHIRE,  a  gentleman  of  two  or  three 

330  Supra,  292. 


310  V1NDICL&    HIBERNICJt. 

/ 

This  manifest  perjury,  for  which,  had  not  the 
chief  justice  been  almost  as  wicked  as  the  inform- 
er, Bedlow  ought  to  have  been  immediately  in- 
dicted, brought  to  the  bar,  tried,  sentenced,  and 
cropped,  was  disregarded.  His  evidence  was 
received  during  the  remainder  of  Anderson's 
trial,  and  against  most  of  the  rest  of  the  unfor- 
tunate men,  who  were  all  found  guilty,  on  the 
testimony  of  Bedlow,  and  other  wretches,  equally 
profligate :  and,  although  the  State  Trials  make 
no  mention  of  the  final  result,  as  to  their  fate, 
we  have  reason,  from  the  temper  of  the  times, 
to  presume  that  they  were  hanged. 

thousand  pounds  a  year;  I  KNOW  HIM  AND  HIS  FA- 
THER VERY  WELL. 

"Anderson.  My  lord,  could  I  but  apprehend  that  I  lay 
under  so  great  a  guilt,  as  to  have  been  acquainted  with  so  great 
a  rogue  as  this  fellow  w,  I  would  have  been  my  own  execu- 
tioner, and  not  have  expected  my  sentence  at  this  bar. 

"  L.  C.  J.   Do  you  know  him  well  ? 

"Bedlow.  Very  well,  both  him  and  his  father.  His  father 
is  an  Oxfordshire  gentleman. 

"Anderson.  Now  I  think  I  shall  prove  the  rogue  perjured. 
Is  my  lord  chief  baron  in  the  court  ? 

"  Court.   Yes,  he  is. 

"  Anderson.  Why  then  my  father  has  the  honour  of  being 
well  known  to  his  lordship,  who  knows  this  to  be  false. 

"  L.  C.  Baron.  No,  no,  Mr.  Bedlow  :  he  is  a  gentleman *s 
son  of  quality  in  LINCOLNSHIRE. 

"  L.  C.  J.  You  are  mistaken,  you  are  mistaken;  his  father 
is  a  LINCOLNSHIRE  gentleman. 

"  Anderson.  And  yet  this  rogue  is  upon  his  oath ;  but  in- 
deed all  his  life  is  full  of  such  mistakes. 

"Bedlow.  I  don't  know.  My  lord  Privij-SeaFs  nepheiv 
told  me  so  !  !  .'"Ml 

331  State  Trials,  VII.  839. 


THE  AGE  OF  PLOTS  AND  PERJURY.    311 

Who  can  read  this  statement  without  horror  ? 
Who  can  regard  otherwise  than  as  a  mere 
slaughter-house,  a  court  of  justice,  where,  on 
the  trial  of  a  number  of  men  for  their  lives; 
merely  for  the  worship  of  the  Living  God,  the 
judge  acts  the  part  of  the  public  accuser  ;*  where 
the  witnesses  for  the  accused  are  almost  torn 
to  pieces  by  the  mob  ;f  and  where  the  evidence 
is  unhesitatingly  received,  of  a  wretch  whose 
perjury  is  as  clear  as  the  noon-day  sun ;  who  is 
caught  flagrante  delicto ;  and  whose  confession 
of  the  hideous  crime  is  made  in  open  court, — 
a  wretch  on  whom 

"  Sin,  death,  and  hell  had  set  their  marks."332 

The  reader  may  inquire,  why  these  facts  are 
here  adduced,  as  few  of  them  occurred  in  Ireland, 

*  "  The  chief  justice  gave  sanction  to  all  the  narrow  pre- 
judices and  bigoted  fury  of  the  populace.  Instead  of  being 
counsel  for  the  prisoners,  as  his  office  required,  HE  PLEADED 
THE  CAUSE  AGAINST  THEM;  browbeat  their  witnesses;  and 
on  every  occasion  represented  their  guilt  as  certain  and  uncon- 
troverted."333 

|  "  When  verdict  was  given  against  the  prisoner,  the  spec- 
tators expressed  their  savage  joy,  by  loud  acclamations.  The 
witnesses,  on  approaching  the  court,  were  almost  torn  in  pieces 
by  the  rabble.  One,  in  particular,  was  bruised  to  such  a  de- 
gree as  to  put  his  life  in  danger  :  and  another,  a  woman,  de- 
clared that,  unless  the  court  could  afford  her  protection,  she 
durst  not  give  evidence.  But  as  the  judges  could"  [would, 
more  properly]  "  go  no  farther  than  promise  to  punish  such  as 
should  do  her  any  injury,  the  prisoner  himself  had  the  huma- 
nity to  wave  her  testimony."334 

332  Shakspeare.         333  Hume,  IV.  329.         334  Idem,  342. 


312  VINDICIJi    HIBEKNICJE. 

and  most  of  them  were  not  cotemporaneous  with 
the  events  we  develop  ?  He  shall  be  satisfied. 
We  wish,  as  we  have  stated  at  the  commence- 
ment of  this  chapter,  to  establish,  beyond  the 
power  of  controversy,  the  prevailing  spirit  of 
the  age,  in  fostering  and  rewarding  perjury,  for- 
gery, and  the  fabrication  of  pretended  plots,  not 
only  during,  but  previous  and  subsequent  to,  the 
period  most  particularly  included  in  these  inves- 
tigations ;  in  order  to  prepare  the  reader  for"  a 
candid  discussion  of  the  pretended  plot  of  1641, 
the  existence  of  which  is  so  universally  credited, 
that  it  requires  a  most  extraordinary  degree  of 
liberality,  even  to  suspend  the  operation  of,  and 
much  more  to  eradicate,  the  inveterate  prejudices 
that  prevail  on  the  subject. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  insurrection  in  1641.  Was  there  a  general 
conspiracy  of  the  Irish,  in  that  year,  to  murder 
the  Protestants  ? 

THE  decision  of  this  question  is  attended  with 
far  more  difficulty  than  any  of  those  which  we 
have  heretofore  presented  to  the  view  of  the 
reader.  The  nature  of  the  case  does  not  admit 
of  the  same  kind  of  evidence  as  we  have  been 
enabled  to  produce,  and  which,  we  flatter  our- 
selves, has  been  found  irresistible. 

But  the  tale  of  this  conspiracy  has  been  so 
universally  credited ;  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
possessors  of  confiscated  property  in  Ireland 
have  been  interested  in  affording  it  support  and 
countenance ;  so  much  art  and  talent  have  been, 
for  a  hundred  and  seventy  years,  employed  in 
giving  it  an  air  of  plausibility ;  there  is  so  much 
difficulty  in  proving  a  negative  in  any  case,  more 
particularly  in  the  present  one,  which  is  natural- 
ly, and  has  been  moreover  artfully,  involved  in 
mystery  ;  and  it  is  so  extremely  arduous  an  un- 
dertaking, to  operate  upon  the  public  mind, 
when  imbued  with  inveterate  prejudices,  that  we 
regard  the  task  as  Herculean,  and  should  have 

40 


814  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

abandoned  it  as  impracticable,  but  that  the  nar- 
rative itself  is  replete  with  so  many  incredible 
and  incongruous  circumstances,  as  to  carry  strong 
internal  evidence  of  fraud. 

In  order  to  give  the  story  fair  play,  and  to 
enable  the  reader  to  form  a  correct  opinion  on 
the  subject,  with  all  the  evidence  before  him,  we 
shall  give  the  whole  account  of  the  discovery  of 
the  plot,  as  it  stands  in  Temple's  History  of  the 
Irish  Rebellion,  the  authority  almost  solely  re- 
lied on  by  all  the  other  writers  on  the  subject. 
We  add  some  slight  extracts  from  Borlase,  con- 
taining a  few  additional  particulars. 

To  simplify  the  examination,  we  have  divided 
the  whole  into  short  sentences,  each  containing 
perfect  sense,  so  as  to  oblige  the  reader  to  pause 
and  reflect,  as  he  proceeds. 

This  point  being  the  main  one  we  have  in 
view  in  this  work,  we  earnestly  invoke  the  read- 
er's calm  and  candid  consideration  of  it.  We 
hope  that,  laying  aside  all  preconceived  opinions 
on  the  subject,  he  will  revolve  it  in  his  mind,  as 
if  it  were  wholly  new,  and  he  had  now,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  to  form  a  decision  on  it. 
We  are  aware  that  there  are  too  many  to  whom 
a  compliance  with  this  request  is  impossible :  and 
indeed  a  large  proportion  of  mankind  can  never 
command  independence  of  mind  enough  even  to 
examine  the  evidence  that  militates  with  their 
early,  and,  of  course,  inveterate,  prejudices ;  far 
less  to  reject  those  prejudices.  We  are  therefore 


A   MARVELLOUS    TOUGH   STORY.  315 

persuaded,  there  are  thousands  who  would  as 
soon  doubt  any  of  the  demonstrations  of  Euclid, 
or  the  existence  of  the  solar  system,  as  the  ex- 
istence of  the  universality  of  the  plot  of  "  the 
execrable  rebellion  of  1641." 

To  this  contracted  class  we  do  not  address 
ourselves :  with  them  we  have  no  fellowship  : 
"  Even  though  one  were  to  rise  from  the  dead," 
he  would  not  remove  their  incredulity.  Let  them 
hug  the  chains  of  their  bigoted  prejudice.  We 
appeal  to  that  respectable  description  of  readers, 
whose  minds  are  open  to  conviction,  and  who 
are  at  all  times  ready  to  yield  to  the  force  of 
evidence,  how  strongly  soever  it  may  militate 
against  those  opinions  that  have  "  grown  with 
their  growth."  The  favourable  decision  of  one 
such  reader,  with  a  clear  head  and  sound  heart, 
would  outweigh  the  disapprobation  of  a  whole 
army  of  the  slaves  of  prejudice. 

Extracts  from  Temple's  Ifistory  of  the  Irish  Rebellion.* 

1.  "  Sir  William  Cole,  upon  the  very  first  apprehensions  of 
something  that  he  conceived  to  be  hatching  among  the  Irish, 
did  write  a  letter  to  the  lords  justices  and  council,  dated  the 
llth  of  October,  1641, 

2.  "  Wherein  he  gave  them  notice  of  the  great  resort  made 
to  Sir  Phelim  O'Neal,  in  the  county  of  Tyrone,  as  also  to  the 
house  of  the  lord  Macguire,  in  the  county  of  Fermanagh,  and 
that  by  several  suspected  persons,  fit  instruments  for  mischief; 

*  The  reader  will  please  to  observe,  that  these  extracts  are  taken  verbatim 
from  the  original  work ;  and,  unless  where  otherwise  distinctly  marked, 
form  an  unbroken  consecutive  series. 


316  VINDICIJE    HIBERNIC-E. 

3.  "  As  also  that  the  said  lord  Macguire  had  of  late  made 
several  journies  into  the  Pale  and  other  places,  and  had  spent 
his  time  much  in  writing  letters  and  sending  despatches  abroad. 

4.  "  These  letters  were  received  by  the  lords  justices  and 
council ; 

5.  "  And  they,  in  answer  to  them,  required  him  to  be  very 
vigilant  and  industrious  to  find  out  what  should  be  the  occa- 
sion of  these  several  meetings,  and  speedily  to  advertise  them 
thereof,  or  of  any  other  particular  that  he  conceived  might 
tend  to  the  public  service  of  the  state."335 

1.  "  They  [the  lords  justices]  had  not  any  certain  notice  of 
the  general  conspiracy  of  the  Irish,  until  the  22d  of  October, 
in  the  very  evening  before  the  day  appointed  for  the  surprise 
of  the  castle  of  Dublin. 

2.  "  The  conspirators  being,  many  of  them,  arrived  within 
the  city,  and  having  that  day  met  at  the  Lion  tavern,  in  Cop- 
per alley,  and  there  turning  the  drawer  out  of  the  room,  order- 
ed their  affairs  together,  drunk  healths  upon  their  knees  to  the 
happy  success  of  the  next  morning's  work. 

3.  "  Owen  O'Conally,  a  gentleman  of  a  mere  Irish  family, 
but  one  that  had  long  lived  among  the  English,  and  been  train- 
ed up  in  the  true  Protestant  religion,  came  unto  the  lord  jus- 
tice Parsons,  ABOUT  NINE  O'CLOCK  THAT  EVENING  ! ! 

4.  "  And  made  him  a  broken  relation  of  a  great  conspiracy 
for  the  seizing  upon  his  majesty's  castle  of  DuBlin. 

5.  "  He  gave  him  the  names  of  some  of  the  chief  conspira- 
tors !  assured  him  that  they  were  come  up  expressly  to  the 
town  for  the  same  purpose,  and  that  next  morning  they  would 
undoubtedly  attempt,  and  surely  effect  it,  if  their  design  were 
not  speedily  prevented  ; 

6.  "  And  that  he  had  understood  all  this  from  Hugh  Mac- 
Mahon,  one  of  the  chief  conspirators,  who  was  then  in  town, 
and  came  up  but  the  very  same  afternoon,  for  the  execution  of 
the  plot ; 

7.  "  And  with  whom  indeed  he  had  been  drinking  somewhat 
liberally;  and  as  the  truth  is,  did  then  make  such  a  broken  rela- 

335  Temple,  18. 


A   MARVELLOUS    TOUGH    STORY.  317 

tion  of  a  matter  that  seemed  so  incredible  in  itself  \  as  that  his 
lordship  gave  very  little  belief  to  it  at  first! 

8.  "  In  regard  it  came  from  an  obscure  person,  and  one,  aa 
he  conceived,  somewhat  distempered  at  that  time. 

9.  "  But  howsoever,  the  lord  Parsons  gave  him  order  to  go 
again  to  Mac-Mahonl !  !  and  get  out  of  him  as  much  certainty 
of  the  plot!  !!  with  as  many  particular  circumstances,  as  he 
could  ! ! !  straitly  charging  him  to  return  back  unto  him  the 
same  evening  !  ! ! 

10.  "  And  in  the  mean  time,  having  by  strict  commands  giv- 
en to  the  constable  of  the  castle,  taken  order  to  have  the  gates 
thereof  well  guarded,  as  also  with  the  mayor  and  sheriff's  of  the 
city  to  have  strong  watches  set  upon  all  parts  of  the  same,  and 
to  make  stay  of  all  strangers, 

11.  "  He  went  privately  !  !  about  ten  of  the  dock  that  night, 
to  the  lord  Borlace's  house  without  the  town,  and  there  ac- 
quainted him  with  what  he  understood  from  O'Conally. 

12.  "  They  sent  for  such  of  the  council  as  they  knew  then  to 
be  in  the  town. 

13.  "  But  there  came  only  unto  them  that  night  sir  Thomas 
Rotheram  and  sir  Robert  Meredith,  chancellour  of  the  exche- 
quer :  with  these  they  fell  into  consultation  what  was  fit  to  be 
done! ! ! !  attending  the  return  of  O'Conally. 

14.  "  And  finding  that  he  staid  somewhat  longer  than  the 
time  prefixed,  they  sent  out  in  search  after  him ; 

15.  "  And  found  him  seized  on  by  the  watch,  and  so  he  had 
been  carried  away  to  prison,  and  the  discovery  that  night  dis- 
appointed, 

16.  "Had  not  one  of  the  lord  Parsons'  servants,  expressly 
sent,  amongst  others,  to  walk  the  streets,  and  attend  the  mo- 
tion of  the  said  O'Conally,  come  in,  and  rescued  him,    and 
brought  him  to  the  lord  Borlace's  house. 

17.  "  O'Conally  having  somewhat  recovered  himself  from 
his  distemper,  occasioned  partly,  as  he  said  himself,  by  the 
horror  of  the  plot  revealed  to  him,  partly  by  his  too  liberal 
drinking  with  Mac-Mahon,  that  he  might  the  more  easily  get 
away  from  him,  (he  beginning  much  to  suspect  and  fear  his 
discovery  of  the  plot,) 


318  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

18.  "  Confirmed  what  he  had  formerly  related,  and  added 
these  farther  particulars  set  down  in  his  examination,  as  fol- 
loweth  :336 

The  Examination  of  Owen  O'Conally,  gentleman,  taken  be- 
fore us,  whose  names  ensue,  October  22,  1641. 

"  Who,  being  duly  sworn  and  examined,  saith  : 

1.  "  That  he  being  at  Monimore,  in  the  county  of  London- 
derry on  Tuesday  last!  he  received  a  letter  from  colonel  Hugh 
Oge  Mac-Mahon,  desiring  him  to  come  to  Conaught,  in  the 
county  of  Monaghan,  and  to  be  with  him  on  Wednesday  or 
Thursday  last ! 

2.  "  Whereupon  he,  this  examinate,  came  to  Conaught,  on 
Wednesday  night  last ; 

3.  "  And  finding  the  said  Hugh  come  to  Dublin,  followed 
him  hither ; 

4.  "  He  came  hither  about  six  of  the  clock  this  evening- ! 

5.  "  And  forthwith  went  to  the  lodging  of  the  said  Hugh, 
to  the  house  near  the  Boat,  in  Oxmantown ; 

6.  "  And  there  he  found  the  same  Hugh,  and  came  with  the 
said  Hugh  into  the  town,  near  the  Pillory,  to  the  lodging  of 
the  lord  Macguire  ; 

7.  "  Where  they  found  not  the  lord  within ;  and  there  they 
drank  a  cup  of  beer ; 

8.  "  And  then  went  back  again  to  the  said  Hugh  his  lodging; 

9.  "  He  saith,  that  at  the  lord  Macguire  his  lodging,  the 
said  Hugh  told  him  that  there  were  and  would  be  this  night 
great  numbers  of  noblemen,  and  gentlemen  of  the  Irish  Pa- 
pists, from  all  the  parts  of  the  kingdom,  in  this  town; 

10.  "  Who  with  himself  had  determined  to  take  the  castle 
of  Dublin,  and  possess  themselves  of  all  his  majesty's  ammu- 
nition there,  to-morrow  morning,  being  Saturday ; 

11.  "And  that  they  intended  first  to  batter  the  chimnies  of 
the  said  town  :  and  if  the  city  would  not  yield,  then  to  batter 
down  the  houses  ; 

12.  "  And  so  to  cut  off  all  the  Protestants  that  would  not 
join  with  them ! 


330 


Temple,  19. 


A    MARVELLOUS    TOUGH   STORY.  319 

13."  He  further  saith,  that  the  said  Hugh  then  told  him, 
that  the  Irish  had  prepared  men  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
to  destroy  all  the  English  inhabiting  there,  to-morrow  morn- 
ing, by  ten  of  the  clock  !  1 

14.  "  And  that  in  all  the  sea-ports,  and  other  towns  in  the 
kingdom,  all  the  Protestants  should  be  killed  this  night!  !  and 
that  all  the  posts  that  could  be,  could  not  prevent  it ; 

15.  "  And  further  saith,  that  he  moved  the  said  Hugh  to 
forbear  executing  of  that  business,  and  to  discover  it  to  the 
state,  for  the  saving  of  his  own  estate  ; 

16.  "  Who  said  he  could  not  help  it ;  but  said,  that  they  did 
owe  their  allegiance  to  the  king,  and  would  pay  him  all  his 
rights  :   but  that  they  did  this  for  the  tyrannical  government 
was  over  them,  and  to  imitate  Scotland,  who  got  a  privilege 
by  that  course  ; 

17.  "  And  he  further  saith,  that  when  he  was  with  the  said 
Hugh,  in  his  lodging  the  second  time,  the  said  Hugh  swore, 
that  he  should  not  go  out  of  his  lodging  that  night,  but  told 
him  that  he  should  go  with  him  the  next  morning  to  the  castle : 
and  said,  if  this  matter  were  discovered,  some  body  should 
die  for  it ; 

18.  "  Whereupon  this  examinate  feigned  some  necessity  for 
his  easement,  went  down  out  of  the  chamber,  and  left  his  sword 
in  pawn :  and  the  said  Hugh  sent  his  man  down  with  him, 
and  when  this  examinate  came  down  into  the  yard,  and  finding 
an  opportunity,  he,  this  examinate,  leaped  over  a  -wall  and  two 
pales  !  !  !  and*  so  came  to  the  lord  justice  Parsons. 

"  October  22,  1641. 

WILLIAM  PARSONS. 
THOMAS  ROTHERAM. 
ROBERT  MEREDITH. 

OWEN   O'CONALLY.'1337 

19.  "  Hereupon  the  lords  took  present  order  to  have  a  watch 
privately  set  upon  the  lodging  of  Mac-Mahon,  as  also  upon  the 
lord  Macguire  !  !  !  !  ! 

20.  "  And  so  they  sat  up  all  that  night  in  consultation  !  !  ? 
having  far  stronger  presumptions  upon  this  latter  examination 
taken,  than  any  ways  at  first  they  could  entertain. 

337  Temple,  20. 


820  VINDICLE   HIBERNIC^E. 

21.  "  The  lords  justices,  upon  a  further  consideration,  there 
being  come  unto  them  early  next  morning!  several  others  of 
the  privy  council,  sent  before  day,  and  seized  upon  Mac-Mahon% 
then  with  his  servant  in  his  own  lodging. 

22.  "  They  at  first  made  some  little  resistance  with  their 
drawn  swords  ;  but,  finding  themselves  overmastered,  present- 
ly yielded. 

23.  "  And  so  they  were  brought  before  the  lords  justices 
and  council,  still  sitting  at  the  lord  Borlace's  house. 

24.  "  Where,  upon  examination,  he  did  without  much  diffi- 
culty confess  the  plot,  resolutely  telling  them,  that  on  that  very 
day,  all  the  forts  and  strong  places  in  Ireland  would  be  taken  !  ! 

25.  "  That  he,  with  the  lord  Macguire,  Hugh  Birn,  captain 
Brian  O'Neil,  and  several  other  Irish  gentlemen,  were  come 
up  expressly  to  surprise  the  castle  of  Dublin. 

26.  "  That  twenty  men  out  of  each  county  in  the  kingdom  !  !  ! 
were  to  be  here  to  join  with  them. 

27.  "  That  all  the  lords  and  gentlemen  in  the  kingdom,  that 
"were  Papists,  were  engaged  in  this  plot  !  !  ! 

28.  "  That  what  was  that  day  to  be  done  in  other  parts  of 
the  country,  was  so  far  advanced  by  that  time,  as  it  was  impos- 
sible for  the  wit  of  man  to  prevent  it ! 

29.  "  And  withal  told  them,  that  it  was  true  they  had  him 
in  their  power,  and  might  use  him  how  they  pleased ;  but  he 
was  sure  he  should  be  revenged."338 

1.  Extract  from  "  The  lords  chief  justices'  letter  to  the  lord 
lieutenant,  October  25th,  1641,  sent  by  Owen  O'Conally,  the 
first  discoverer. 

"  May  it  please  your  lordship, 

2.  "  On  Friday,  the  22d  of  this  month,  after  nine  o'clock 
at  night,  this  bearer,  Owen  O'Conally,  SERVANT  TO  SIR 
JOHN  CLOTWORTHY,  KNIGHT,  came  to  me,  the  lord 
justice  Parsons,  to  my  house, 

3.  "  And  in  great  secresie  (as  indeed  the  cause  did  re- 
quire) discovered  unto  me  a  most  wicked  and  damnable  con- 
spiracy, plotted,  contrived,  and  intended  to  be  also  acted  by 
some  evil-affected  Irish  Papists  here. 

338  Temple,  21. 


A   MARVELLOUS    TOUGH   STORY.  321 

4.  "  The  plot  was  on  the  then  next  morning,  Saturday,  the 
23d  of  October,  being  St.  Ignatius's  day,  about  nine  of  the  clock! 
to  surprize  his  majestie's  castle  of  Dublin,  his  majestie's  chief 
strength  of  this  kingdom ;  wherein  also  is  the  principal  maga- 
zine of  his  majestie's  arms  and  munition. 

5.  "  And  it  was  agreed,  it  seems,  among  them,  that  at 
the  same  hour,  all  other  his  majestie's  forts  and  magazines  of 
arms  and  munition  in  this  kingdom  !  !  should  be  surprized  by 
others  of  those  conspirators  : 

6.  "  And  further,  that  all  the  Protestants  and  English 
throughout  the  -whole  kingdom,  that  would  not  join  with  them, 
should  be  cut  off! !  and  so  those  Papists  should  then  become 
possessed  of  the  government  and  kingdom  at  the  same  instant. 

7.  "  As  soon  as  I  had  that  intelligence,  I  then  immediately 
repaired  to  the  lord  justice  Borlace ;  and  thereupon  -we  in- 
stantly assembled  the  council. 

8.  "And  having  sate  all  that  night!!!  also  all  the  next 
day,  the  23d  of  October,  in  regard  of  the  short  time  left  us  for 
the  consultation  of  so  great  and  weighty  a  matter,  although  it 
was  not  possible  for  us,  upon  so  few  hours'  warning,  to  pre- 
vent those  other  great  mischiefs  which  were  to  be  acted,  even 
at  the  same  hour  and  at  so  great  a  distance,  in  all  the  other 
parts  of  the  kingdom. 

9.  "  Yet  such  was  our  industry  therein,  having  caused  the 
castle  to  be  that  night  strengthened  with  armed  men,  and  the 
city  guarded,  as  the  wicked  councils  of  those  evil  persons,  by 
the  great  mercy  of  God  to  us,  became  defeated,  so  as  they 
were  not  able  to  act  that  part  of  their  treachery,  which  indeed 
was  principal, 

10.  "  And  which,  if  they  could  have  effected,  would  have 
rendered  the  rest  of  their  purposes  the  more  easy. 

11.  "  Having  so  secured  the  castle,  we  forthwith  laid  about 
for  the  apprehension  of  as  many  of  the  offenders  as  we  could, 
many  of  them  having  come  to  this  city  but  that  night,  intend- 
ing, it  seems,  the  next  morning,  to  act  their  parts  in  those 
treacherous  and  bloody  crimes. 

12.  "The  first  man  apprehended  was  one  Hugh  Mac-Ma- 
hon,  Esq.  (grandson  to  the  traitor  Tyrone)   a  gentleman  of 
good  fortune  in  the  county  of  Monaghan,  who,  with  others, 

41 


322  VINDICIJE    HIBERNIOK. 

WAS  TAKEN  THAT  MORNING  in  Dublin,  having,  at 
the  time  of  their  apprehension,  offered  a  little  resistance  with 
their  swords  drawn ;  but  finding  those  we  employed  against 
them  more  in  number,  and  better  armed,  yielded. 

13.  "  He,  upon  examination  before  us,  at  first  denied  all;  but 
in  the  end,  when  he  saw  we  laid  it  home  to  him,  he  confessed 
enough  to  destroy  himself,  and  impeach  some  others,  as  by  a 
copy  of  his  examinations  herewith  sent,  may  appear  to  your 
lordship. 

14.  "  We  then  committed  him  till  we  might  have  further 
time  to  examine  him  again,  our  time  being  become  more  need- 
ful to  be  employed  in  action  for  securing  this  place,  than 
examining.    This  Mac-Mahon  had  been  abroad,  and  served 
the  king  of  Spain  as  a  lieutenant-colonel. 

15.  "  Upon  conference  with  him  and  others! ! !  and  calling 
to  mind  a  letter  we  received  the  iveek  before  from  Sir  William 
Cole  ! ! !  a  copy  whereof  we  send  your  lordship  here  inclosed, 
we  gathered,  that  the  lord  Macguire  was  to  be  an  actor  in 
surprizing  the  castle  of  Dublin  !  !  !  !  ! 

16.  "  Wherefore  we  held  it  necessary  to  secure  him  imme- 
diately, thereby  also  to  startle  and  deter  the  rest,  when  they 
found  him  laid  fast  "339 


Extracts  from  Eorlace's  "History  of  the  Execrable  Irish 
Rebellion." 

1.  "  In  the  interim,  the  lord  Parsons,  (being  touched  with 
the  relation,)  repaired,  about  ten  of  the  clock  at  night,  to  the 
lord  Borlace,  at  Chichester  house,  without  the  town, 

2.  "  And  disclosed  to  him  what  O'Conally  had  imparted  ; 
which  made  so  sensible  an  impression  on  his  colleague,  as 
(the  discoverer  being  let  go)  he  grew  infinitely  concerned 
thereat,  having  none  to  punish,  if  the  story  should  prove  false, 
or  means  to  learn  more,  were  it  true. 

3.  "  In  the  disturbance  of  which  perplexity,  Owen  O'Con- 
ally comes  (or,  as  others  write,  was  brought)  Avhere  the  lords 
justices  were  then  met;  sensible  that  his  discovery  was  not 

339  Temple,  28. 


A  MARVELLOUS   TOUGH   STORY.  323 

thoroughly  believed,  professing  that  whatever  he  had  acquaint- 
ed the  lord  Parsons  with  (touching  the  conspiracy)  was  true : 

4.  "  And  could  he  but  repose  himself,  (the  effects  of  drink 
being  still  upon  him)  he  should  discover  more. 

5.  "  Whereupon  he  had  the  conveniency  of  a  bed."3*0 

6.  "  In  the  interim,  the  lords  justices  summoned  as  many 
of  the  council  as  they  could  give  notice  to,  to  their  assistance 
that  night  at  Chichester  house. 

7.  "  Sir  Thomas  Rotheram,  and  Sir  Robert  Meredith,  chan- 
cellor of  the  exchequer,  came  immediately  to  them. 

8.  "  They  then  with  all  diligence  secured  the  gates  of  the 
city,  with  such  as  they  could  most  confide  in,  and  strengthen- 
ed the  warders  of  the  castle,  (which  were  a  few  inconsiderable 
men,)  with  their  foot  guard,  usually  attending  their  persons, 
charging  the  mayor  and  his  brethren  to  be -watchful  of  all  per- 
sons that  should -walk  the  streets  that  night!  !  /"341 

9.  "  Hugh  Oge  Mac-Mahon,  Esqr.  grandson  by  his  mother 
to  the  traitor  Tir-Owen,  a  gentleman  of  good  fortune  in  the 
county  of  Monaghan,  who  had  served  as  a  lieutenant-colonel 
in  the  king  of  Spain's  quarters,  was,  after  some  little  resistance, 
apprehended  before  day  in  his  own  lodgings,  over  the  water, 
near  the  Inns,  and  brought  to  Chichester  house  ; 

10.  "  Where,  upon  examination,  he  did,  without  much  dif- 
ficulty, confess  the  plot,  resolutely  telling  them,  That  ON  THAT 
VERY  DAY,  (it  was  now  about  five  in  the  morning,  the  23d of 
Oct.  1641///J  that  all  the  forts  and  strong  places  in  Ireland 
would  be  taken,"  &c.  &c.342 

11.  "  Before  Mac-Mahon  was  apprehended,  O'Conally, 
having  on  his  repose  recovered  himself,  had  his  examination 
taken,  in  these  words  :"343  [as  before.] 

340  Borlace,  20.         341  Ibid.         342  Ibid.         343  Ibid. 


! 


324  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJK. 

N 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE  FOREGOING  LEGEND. 

I.  A  Roman  Catholic  colonel  is  engaged  in  a 
plot,  the  object  of  which  is  to  massacre  all  the 
Protestants  in  the  kingdom,  except  those  who 
would  join  in  murdering  their  brethren. 

II.  This  colonel,  in  want  of  a  confederate, 
sends  about  fifty  miles  to  O'Conally,  a  Protestant, 
to  reveal  to  him  this  project. 

III.  O'Conally,  who,  in  order  to  attach  impor- 
tance to  his  testimony,  in  some  of  the  statements 
is  styled  "  a  gentleman,"  is,  in  fact  and  in  truth, 
merely  a  servant  to  Sir  John  Clotworthy,  one  of 
the  most  envenomed  enemies  of  the  Roman  Ca- 
tholics, and,  of  course,  a  very  suitable  person  to 
be  entrusted  with  such  a  secret,  and  very  worthy 
to  be  sent  for  to  a  place  distant  fifty  miles. 

IV.  O'Conally  receives  the  letter  on  Tuesday, 
the  19th  of  October,  at  what  hour  is  not  known, 
— say  nine  o'clock ;  and,  wholly  ignorant  of  the 
nature  of  the  affair  which  leads  to  the  invitation, 
makes  all  his  preparations  at  once,  and  com- 
mences his  journey,  we  will  suppose,  about  noon 
the  same  day. 

V.  He  arrives,  on  Wednesday  night,  the  20th, 
at  Conaught,  after  a  journey  of  about  fifty  miles  : 
and  be  it  observed,  en  passant,  that  a  journey  of 
fifty  miles,  at  that  period,  was  as  arduous  an 
undertaking,  and  required  full  as  much  prepara- 
tion, as  a  journey  of  two  hundred  miles  at  present. 


ANALYSIS    OF    A   LEGENDARY   TALE.           325 

VI.  Colonel  Mac-Mahon,  who  had  given  him 
the  option  of  coming  on  Wednesday  OR  Thurs- 
day, so  far  broke  his  engagement,  that  he  had 
started,  on  Wednesday,  for  Dublin,  previous  to 
O'Conally's  arrival,   which   took  place   on  the 
night  of  that  day. 

VII.  O'Conally,  nothing  discouraged  by  the 
breach  of  engagement  on  the  part  of  the  colonel, 
follows  him  to  Dublin. 

VIII.  He  arrives  in  that  city  on  the  memorable 
Friday,  the  22d  of  October,  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  ONE  HOUR  AFTER  SUNSET. 

IX.  Monimore,  where  O'Conally  received  the 
friendly  invitation  to   the  throat-cutting  party, 
appears,  by  Pinkerton's  map,  to  be  about  ninety- 
three  miles  in  a  direct  line  from  Dublin,  and 
was  probably  a  hundred  and  ten,  or  a  hundred 
and  twenty,  by  the  usual  circuitous  windings  of 
the  road, — we  will  suppose  only  a  hundred  and 
ten. 

X.  Conaught,  in  Monaghan,  is  not  to  be  found 
on  any  map.     Its  distance  from  the  extreme 
points  cannot  therefore  be  ascertained  ;  and,  be- 
ing left  to  range  in  the  fields  of  conjecture,  we 
will  venture  to  suppose  it  was  nearly  mid-way, 
or  fifty  miles. 

XI.  The  climate  of  Ireland  is  very  moist.  Rains 
are  generally  abundant,  particularly  in  autumn. 
Of  course,  the  roads  at  that  season  were  very 
probably  mini,  and  difficult  to  travel. 

fj  tS     •  fc»/ 


326  VINDICLffi    HIBERNICJK. 

XII.  It  thus  appears,  that  O'Conally  has  per- 
formed a  journey  of  about  fifty  miles  in  a  day 
and  a  half;  that  is,  from  mid-day  on  Tuesday, 
to  Wednesday  night ;  and  a  hundred  and  ten  in 
three  days  and  a  half,  at  a  season  of  the  year, 
when   THE   SUN  ROSE   ABOUT  SEVEN,   AND   SET 
ABOUT  FIVE  ;  and  this  exploit  was  accomplished 
at  a  time  when  there  were  no  diligences,  or 
post-coaches,  or  post-chaises,  or  steam-boats,  to 
ensure   expedition;   and  when,  moreover,  the 
roads  were,  as  we  have  stated,  in  all  probability 
in  very  bad  order. 

XIII.  Nothing  discouraged  by  the  fatigue  of  his 
journey  of  a  hundred  and  ten  miles,  nor  by  his 
previous  disappointment,  nor  by  the  darkness  of 
the  evening,  he  commences  a  search  for  the 
lodgings  of  an  entire  stranger.    And  let  it  not  be 
forgotten,  that  on  this  night  the  moon  was  invi- 
sible,* a  circumstance  admirably  calculated  to  aid 
his  researches  ! 

*  Extract  of  a  Letter  from  the  Vice-Provost  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania. 

"January  6,  1819. 
"  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  find  that  it  was  New  Moon,  at  Dublin,  at  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  24th  of  October,  1641,  O.  S. 
Consequently  the  moon  must  have  been  invisible  on  the  whole 
night  of  the  22d-23d  of  that  month. 

"  Yours,  &c. 

"  R.  M.  PATTERSON. 
"  MR.  M.  CAREY." 


ANALYSIS  OF  A  LEGENDARY  TALE.    327 

XIV.  Instinct  is  a  most  valuable  quality,  and 
supplies  the  want  of  the  most  important  senses : 
and  the  "servant"  or  "gentleman"  aided  by 
instinct,  discovered,  in  the  suburbs,  the  lodgings 
of  the  colonel;  as  Sir  John  Falstaff,  "  by  instinct" 
discovered  the  mad-cap  prince  of  Wales. 

XV.  Although  the  colonel  was  engaged  in  "  a 
good  plot,  and  full  of  expectation,"  to  explode 
on  Saturday,  at  ten  o'clock,  A.  M.  O'Conally  finds 
him  alone  at  or  about  six  o'clock  on  Friday  even- 
ing, in  the  suburbs,  and  appears  to  have  seen 
none  of  his  brother  conspirators  until  nine,  at 
which  time  O'Conally  left  him. 

XVI.  The  colonel  takes  him  to  the  lodgings  of 
a  brother  conspirator  "  into  town"  at  the  distance, 
probably,  of  a  mile  or  two. 

XVII.  This  conspirator  not  being  at  home,  the 
colonel,  after  having  taken  a  drink  of  beer  with 
his  new  friend,  freely  communicates  "  that  there 
were  and  would  be,  this  night,  great  numbers  of 
noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  the  Irish,  from  all 
parts  of  the  kingdom,"  whose  object  was  "  to  cut 
off  all  the  Protestants  that  would  not  join  them"3*4' 

XVIII.  And  they  then  went  back  to  "  the  said 
Hugh  his  lodgings,"  in  the  suburbs,  "near  Ox- 
mantown,"  where  O'Conally  drank  himself  beastly 
drunk. 

XIX.  O'Conally,  notwithstanding  this  tempo- 
rary derangement  in  his  pericranium,  and  that 

344  Temple,  20, 


328  VINDICLt    HIBKRNICJE. 

he  was,  two  hours  afterwards,  unable  to  relate  a 
consistent  story,  was  alert  enough  to  "  leap  over 
a  wall,"  and  afterwards  "  over  two  pales,"  which 
was  a  very  remarkable  exploit,  for  a  man  who 
had  poured  out  so  many  libations  to  Bacchus. 

"  I  have  seen  drunkards  do  more  than  this  in  sport."34* 

XX.  He  found  his  way,  "  by  instinct,"  probably, 
to  Sir  William  Parsons,  into  the  town,  to  whom 
he  communicated  the  whole  affair. 

XXI.  Here  let  us  observe,  by  way  of  a  paren- 
thesis, that  this  very  Sir  William  had  received 
information  of  a  plot,  several  days  before,  from 
Sir  William  Cole,  "upon  the  very  first  apprehen- 
sion of  something  that  he  conceived  to  be  hatching 
among  the  Irish."346 

XXII.  And  further,  that  this  lord  justice  had 
written  to  Sir  William  Cole,  "  to  be  very  vigilant 
in  inquiring  into  the  occasion  of  those  meet- 
ings ;"347  whereby  it  appears  that  he  had  suspi- 
cions of  a  conspiracy. 

XXIII.  Notwithstanding  this  information,  Sir 
William  Parsons,  who  was  jealous  of  some  plot 
"hatching  among  the  Irish;"  who,  of  course, 
ought  to  be  on  the  qui  vive,  and  to  take  alarm 
on  the  slightest  intimation  of  any  scheme  of  that 
kind ;  receiving  this  "  broken  relation  of  a  matter 
so  incredible  in  itself,"  his  lordship  "gave  very 
little  belief  to  it  at  first,  in  regard  it  came  from 
an  obscure  person,  and  one,  as  he  conceived, 
somewhat  distempered  at  that  time."348 

315  Shakspeare.       346  Temple,  18.       M7  Ibid.       348  Ibid. 


ANALYSIS  OF  A  LEGENDARY  TALE.    329 

XXIV.  "  His  lordship,"  with  most  wonderful 
sagacity,  "  hearing  this  broken  relation"  of  a  plot, 
to  explode  in  about  twelve  or  thirteen  hours,  for 
the  purpose  of  cutting  the  throats  of  all  the  Pro- 
testants, and  his  own  very  valuable  throat  among 
the  rest,  sends  the  informer ! !  between  nine  and 
ten  at  night ! !  with  "  order  to  go  again  to  Mac- 
Mahon,  and  get  out  of  him  as  much  certainty  of 
the  plot  as  he  could  ! !  !"349 

XXV.  This  informer,  being  so  drunk,  as  we 
have  stated,  that,  in  an  hour  or  two  afterwards, 
he  was  unable  to  make  a  deposition,  without  let- 
ting "  sleep,  with  her  leaden  and  batty  wings, 
creep  over  him,"  was  therefore  a  most  admirable 
spy  to  make  further  discoveries! !! 

XXVI.  After  sending  O'Conally  to  Mac-Mahon's 
lodgings,  with  strict  orders  w  to  return  back  unto 
him  the  same  evening,"  Sir  William  went  "pri- 
vately, at  about  ten  of  the  clock  that  night,  to 
lord  Borlase's  house,  WITHOUT  THE  TOWN,"350 
whereas  O'Conally  was  directed  to  come  to  him 
at  his  house  WITHIN  THE  TOWN. 

XXVII.  "  They  sent  for  such  of  the  council  as 
they  knew  then  to  be  IN  THE  TOWN,"  to  lord 
Borlase's  house,  "  WITHOUT  THE  TOWN."351 

XXVIII.  There  they  fell  into  deep  consultation 
"  what  was  fit  to  be  done,  attending  the  return 
of  O'Conally."352 

349  Temple,  19.          35°  Ibid.          3J1  Ibid.          3SS  Ibid. 
42 


330  VINDICLE 

XXIX.  They  then  sent  in  search  of  him,  and 
found  that  he  had  been  taken  by  the  watch,  and 
rescued  by  the  servants  of  Sir  William  Parsons, 
"  who  had  been  sent,  amongst  others,  to  walk  the 
streets,  and  attend  his  motions."3" 

XXX.  "  Sensible  that  his  discovery  was  not 
thoroughly  believed,  he  professed  that  whatever 
he  had  acquainted  the  lord  Parsons  with,  was 
true  ;  and  could  he  but  repose  himself,  (the  ef- 
fects of  drink  being  still  upon  him)  he  should 
discover  more."354 

XXXI.  "  Whereupon,  he  had  the  conveniency 
of  a  bed."355 

XXXII.  "  Having  (on  his  repose)  recovered 
himself"  he  gave  in  his  deposition. 

XXXIII.  This  is  dated  the  22d,  and  of  course 
must  have  been  made  before  twelve  o'clock. 

XXXIV.  This  deposition  gave  a  full  detail  of 
a  most  murderous  plot,  whereby  "all  the  Pro- 
testants and  English,  throughout  the  whole  king- 
dom, were  to  be  cut  off  the  next  morning" 

XXXV.  Possessed  of  this  deposition,  which 
required  the  most  decisive  measures  of  preven- 
tion, it  becomes  a  serious  question,  what  did  the 
lords  justices  do  ?  On  this  point  the  whole  merits 
of  the  question  might  be  rested :    and  indeed 
the  investigation  of  any  other  might  be  wholly 
omitted.     The  answer  to  the  above  question  is, 
"  They  took  present  order  to  have  a  watch  pri- 

353  Temple,  19.  3S1  Borlace,  20.  35S  Ibid. 


ANALYSIS  OF  A  LEGENDARY  TALE.    331 

•catety  set  upon  the  lodgings  of  Mac-Mahon,  as 
also  upon  the  lord  Macguire  !!!" 

XXXVI.  In  a  plain,  simple  case,  in  which  a 
school-boy  of  ten  years  old-  could  have  at  once 
pointed  out  the  course  to  be  pursued,  they  spend 
no  less  than  five  precious  hours  "  in  consultation" 
and  in  devising  ways  and  means  for  the  public 
safety,  notwithstanding  that  the  sword,  not  of 
Damocles,  but  of  Mac-Mahon  and  his  bloody- 
minded  associates,  hung  over  them.   "  They  sate 
up  all  that  night  in  consultation,"   "having  far 
stronger  presumptions,  upon  the  latter  examina- 
tion taken,  than  any  ways  at  first  they  could 
entertain."356 

XXXVII.  The  result  of  their  long  and  painful 
consultation,  from  twelve  o'clock  at  night  till  five 
in  the  morning,  was,  that  at  that  late  hour,  they 
at  length  adopted  the  resolution  of  apprehending 
Mac-Mahon  ! ! ! ! ! ! 

XXXVIII.  The  lords  justices  had  received  the 
names  of  some  of  the  principal  conspirators  from 
O'Conally,  and,  among  the  rest,  of  lord  Macguire; 
had  privately  set  a  watch,  on  Friday  night,  at  his 
lodgings  :  they  must  of  course  have  known  that 
he  was  equally  implicated  with  Mac-Mahon,  and 
equally  demanded  the  exercise  of  their  vigilance ; 
and  yet  they  did  not  think  of  arresting  him,  until 
after  the  seizure  of  the  latter,  and  "  a  conference 
with  him  and  others,  and  calling  to  mind  a  letter 

356  Temple,  21. 


332  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC*. 

received  the  week  before  from  Sir  William  Cole" 
they  "  gathered"  that  he  "  was  to  be  an  actor  in 
surprising  the  castle  of  Dublin."357 

XXXIX.  Owen  O'Conally  swears,  that  in  all 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  "  all  the  English  inhabit- 
ing there,"  are  to  be  destroyed  "  to-morrow 
morning  "  but,  in  the  very  next  sentence,  he 
swears,  "  that  all  the  Protestants,  in  all  the  sea- 
ports and  other  towns  in  the  kingdom,  should  be 
killed  this  night"  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive, 
how,  after  they  were  "all  killed'"  on  Friday  night, 
they  could  be  "  all  destroyed"  on  Saturday  morn- 
ing. 

XL.  O'Conally's  deposition  states,  that  the 
massacre  is  to  begin  at  ten  o'clock  on  the  23d ; 
to  be  general  in  all  the  parts  of  the  kingdom ; 
that  all  the  English  inhabitants  are  to  be  cut  off; 
and  that  all  the  posts  that  could  be,  could  not 
prevent  it.  As  this  is  the  cardinal  point  in  the 
affair,  on  which  the  whole  turns,  if  it  can  be 
proved  to  be  so  unequivocally  false  and  ground- 
less, as  to  be  utterly  destitute  of  even  the  shadow 
of  truth,  then  is  the  entire  story  a  fabrication, 
and  O'Conally  a  perjurer. 

XLI.  That  this  explosion  did  not  take  place ; 
and  that,  of  course,  there  could  not  possibly  have 
been  a  general  conspiracy,  we  have  superabun- 
dant testimony,  as  will  appear  in  the  subsequent 
paragraphs. 

357  Temple,  28. 


ANALYSIS  OF  A  LEGENDARY  TALE.    333 

XLII.  We  will  first  premise,  that,  as  the  arrest 
of  Mac-Mali  on  and  Macguire,  in  consequence  of 
the  pretended  discovery  of  the  sham  plot,  took 
place  on  the  23d  of  October,  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  just  five  hours  before  the  time  fixed 
for  commencing  the  massacre,  that  circumstance 
could  not  have  prevented  an  explosion  in  any 
other  part  of  the  kingdom,  except  in  a  very  small 
portion  of  the  circumjacent  vicinity. 

XLIII.  Yet  on  Monday,  the  25th  of  October, 
the  lords  justices  wrote  an  elaborate  and  detailed 
account  of  the  proceedings  of  the  insurgents  in 
the  north  of  Ireland,  with  a  prolix  statement  of 
various  outrages,  not  only  without  the  least  hint 
or  surmise,  but  even  an  utter  exclusion  of  every 
idea,  of  murder  or  shedding  of  blood.* 

*  In  the  despatch  above  referred  to,  dated  October  25th,  the 
lords  justices,  after  having  given  an  account  of  sundry  out- 
rages perpetrated  by  the  insurgents  in  Ulster,  without  a  word 
respecting  bloodshed,  add,  u  And  this,  though  too  much,  is  all 
that  we  yet  hear  is  done  by  them."359  This  sentence,  and  the 
declaration  in  the*  proclamation  of  the  29th,  that  the  insurrection 
was  confined  to  "  such  of  the  mere  old  Irish  in  the  province 
of  Ulster,  as  have  plotted,  contrived,  and  been  actors  in  this 
treason,  and  others  who  adhere  to  them,"  set  the  broad  seal  of 
condemnation  and  flagrant  falsehood  on  the  murderous  part  of 
O'Conally's  deposition;  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  add,  that 
when  the  main  point  of  a  story  is  proven  to  be  false,  the  whole 
may  be  pronounced  to  be 

"  Lies,  like  the  father  that  begets  them , 

"  Gross  as  a  mountain."359 

358  Temple,  30.  359  Shakspeare. 


334  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

XLIV.  And  further,  we  invoke  the  most  earnest 
attention  of  the  reader  to  this  all-important  fact: — 
Notwithstanding  the  pretended  generality  of  the 
plot,  the  lords  justices,  by  public  proclamation, 
on  the  29th  of  October,  declared,  that  the  insur- 
rection was  confined  to  "  the  mere  old  Irish  of 
the  province  of  Ulster,  and  others  who  adhered 
to  them ;"  and  that  they  were  well  assured  of  the 
fidelity  of  the  old  English  of  the  Pale,  and  of  the 
other  parts  of  the  kingdom.* 

XLV.  These  two  strong  facts  prove  that  such 
parts  of  O'ConaUy's  deposition  as  relate  to  the 
general  extent  of  the  conspiracy,  and  the  plot  to 
"  cut  off  all  the  Protestants  throughout  the  king- 
dom," are  wholly  false,  and  that  he  of  course 
was  an  abandoned  perjurer ;  and  would  decide 
the  question  on  these  vital  points,  beyond  appeal 
or  controversy.  But  much  stronger  evidence 

*  Extract  from  'a  Proclamation  by  the  Lords  Justices  of 

Ireland,  dated  October  29,  1641. 

*  "  We  do  hereby  declare  and  publish,  to  all  his  majes- 
tie's  good  subjects  in  this  kingdom,  that  by  the  words  *  Irish 
Papists,'  we  intended  only  such  of  the  old  mere  Irish  in  the 
province  of  Ulster,  as  have  plotted,  contrived,  and  been  actors 
in  this  treason,  and  others  who  adhere  to  them ; 

"  And  that  we  do  not  any  way  intend  or  mean  thereby 
any  of  the  old  English  of  the  Pale,  nor  of  any  other  parts  of 
this  kingdom  : 

"WE     BEING    WELL     ASSURED    OF     THEIR    FIDELITY    TO 

THE  CROWN,  and  having  experience  of  the  good  affections  of 
their  ancestors  in  former  times  of  danger  and  rebellion."360 

360  Temple,  34. 


ANALYSIS  OF  A  LEGENDARY  TALE.    335 

remains  behind,  derived  from  Temple,  Borlase, 
Carte,  Leland,  and  Warner,  to  which  we  now 
invite  the  attention  of  the  reader. 

XLVI.  Munster  continued  tranquil  for  six 
weeks,  although,  according  to  the  testimony  of 
Warner,  it  contained  but  one  troop  of  horse  :*  and 
of  course,  when  defended  by  such  an  insignificant 
force,  had  there  been  any  reality  in  the  plot,  the 
Irish  could  and  would  have  totally  overwhelmed 
their  oppressors.! 

*  "  In  the  province  of  Munster,  of  which  Sir  William  St. 
Leger  was  lord  president,  the  English  were  very  numerous, 
and  ready  to  assemble  in  a  body  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the 
country.  But  they  were  utterly  destitute  of  arms  :  and  all  the 
solicitations  made  by  Sir  William,  which  were  strong  and 
numerous,  could  not  persuade  the  lords  justices  and  council  to 
spare  him  any.  He  was  a  brave  old  soldier,  of  great  experi- 
ence and  ability ;  and  did  every  thing  that  it  was  possible  for 
a  man  to  do  with  one  troop  of  horse,  -which  -was  all  his  guard 
for  the  whole  province;  a  guard  scarcely  sufficient  to  repress 
the  insolence  of  robbers,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  much 
less  in  a  time  of  such  general  spoil  and  disturbance.  But,  with 
the  assistance  of  the  noblemen  and  gentry  of  the  province,  it 
continued  quiet  for  above  six  weeks !  !  !  Indeed,  no  man  of 
quality,  or  gentleman  of  English  blood,  either  Papist  or  Pro- 
testant, had  as  yet  joined  the  rebels."361 

f  There  is  a  discrepancy  between  Temple  and  Borlase  as  to 
the  time  when  the  insurrection  commenced  in  Munster ;  the 
former  dating  it  "  the  beginning,"  and  the  latter  "  the  midst," 
of  December.  This  does  not,  however,  affect  the  disproof  of 
O'Conally's  deposition,  which,  in  either  case,  is  notoriously 
false. 

41  The  flame  having  marched  through  Ulster  and  Leinster,  it 
discovers  its  fury,  about  the  beginning-  of  December^  1641,  in 

361  Warner,  130. 


, 

336  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

XL VII.  Connaught  was  in  the  same  state  for  six 
weeks,  principally  owing  to  the  influence  of  lord 
Clanrickarde,  a  Roman  Catholic.* 

Munster,  which  province  till  that  time  (by  the  moderation  of 
the  state)  had  stifled  its  rage,  then  expressing  its  consent  with 
the  other  provinces."362 

"  The  whole  province  of  Munster,  about  the  midst  of  this 
month  of  December,  BEGAN  to  declare  themselves  in  open  re- 
bellion."363 

"  In  Munster,  Sir  William  St.  Leger,  the  lord  president,  a 
soldier  of  activity  and  experience,  and  possessed  even  with  an 
inveteracy  against  the  Irish,  could  not  obtain  arms  or  soldiers 
sufficient  for  a  time  of  peace,  much  lessor  a  juncture  of  dis- 
traction and  disorder.  Yet  the  strength  of  the  English  Pro- 
testants, and  the  loyalty  of  the  Irish  gentry,  as  yet  preserved 
this  province  from  any  material  disorder.'1''36* 

*  "  The  lord  Ranelagh  was  president  of  Connaught :  and  all 
that  province,  except  a  few  pillagers  in  the  county  of  Sligo,  had, 
owing  in  a  great  measure  to  the  forward  zeal  and  activity  of 
lord  Clanrickarde,  though  a  Roman  Catholic,  till  this  time 
continued  quiet."365 

".The  infection  of  the  Pale  having  spread  in  the  remoter 
parts,  about  the  middle  of  .December,  the  whole  province  of 
Connaught  in  a  manner  revolted,  the  county  of  Galway,  of 
which  lord  Clanrickarde  was  governor,  excepted."386 

"  The  peace  and  security  of  Connaught  were  equally  ne- 
glected by  the  chief  governors,  although  the  English  power 
•was  inconsiderable  in  this  province,  and  the  Irish  natives  kept 
in  continual  alarm  for  twenty-five  years,  by  the  prospect  of  a 
general  plantation,  which,  though  suspended,  had  not  been 
formally  relinquished.  Tet  here,  too,  the  good  affections  of  the 
principal  inhabitants  stemmed  the  torrent  of  rebellion."3*'7 

362  Borlace,  49.      363  Temple,  155.       364  Leland,  III.  158. 
365  Warner,  157.       366  Idem,  158.       367  Leland,  III.  158. 


ANALYSIS  OF  A  LEGENDARY  TALE.    337 

XL VIII.  Leinster  was  likewise  tranquil,  except 
some  outrages  of  small  importance,  until  the 
beginning  of  December ;  as  the  summons  to  the 
lords  of  the  Pale  to  come  to  Dublin,  to  consult 
on  the  affairs  of  state,  was  dated  the  3d  of  that 
month,  at  which  time  there  was  no  appearance 
of  serious  disturbance  ;  and  the  butchery  at  San- 
try,  by  the  sanguinary  and  merciless  ruffian,  Sir 
Charles  Coote,*  which  was  obviously  intended 
to  provoke,  and  actually  led  to,  the  insurrection 
in  that  province,  took  place  on  the  7th. 

XLIX.  And  further,  we  have  the  testimony  of 
Warner  and  Carte,f  that  the  insurrection  was  for 

*  "  The  town  being  left  at  his  [Sir  Charles  Coote's]  mercy, 
to  which  he  appears  to  be  a  stranger,  he  put  to  death  several 
persons,  -without  distinction  of  age  or  sex  !!!  in  revenge  of  the 
several  spoils  committed  on  the  English  in  those  parts."368 

"  In  revenge  of  their  depredations,  he  [Sir  Charles  Coote] 
committed  such  unprovoked,  such  ruthless,  and  indiscriminate 
carnage  in  the  town,  as  rivalled  the  utmost  extravagancies  of 
the  Northerns."369 

"  The  town  being  left  to  his  [Sir  Charles  Coote's]  mercy, 
he,  in  revenge  of  the  spoils  committed  upon  the  English,  put, 
zvithout  distinction  of  sex!  !!  several  persons  to  death."370 

f  "  Had  the  lords  justices  and  council  acquitted  themselves 
like  men  of  probity  and  understanding,  there  was  time  enough 
given  them  to  suppress  an  insurrection  -which  for  six  -weeks 
was  confined  almost  to  the  province  of  Ulster,  without  any  chief 
that  was  so  considerable  as  Sir  Phelim  O'Neal."371 

"No  one  nobleman  of  the  kingdom,  nor  any  estated  gentleman 
of  English  race,  engaged  in  the  rebellion,  or  joined  with  the 
rebels  in  action,  till  the  month  of  December ;  for  as  to  those 

368  Warner,  135.  369  Leland,  III.  168. 

370  Carte,  I.  242.  371  Warner,  130. 

43 


338  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

about  six  weeks  confined  almost  wholly  to  the 
province  of  Ulster. 

L.  That  the  original  views  of  the  insurgents 
did  not  comprehend  a  general  massacre,  or  even 
single  murders,  we  have  further  testimony,  clear 
and  decisive,  derived  from  Temple,  Warner,  and 
Leland,  which,  independent  of  all  other  proof, 
would  be  sufficient  to  settle  this  question  for 
ever,  and  utterly  overwhelm  O'Conally's  perjured 
legend.* 

LI.  Moreover,  if  there  had  been  a  plot 
for  a  general  insurrection,  and  such  a  massacre 

gentlemen  of  the  county  of  Louth,  who  submitted  to  them  be- 
fore, being  unable  to  defend  themselves  or  to  make  resistance, 
they  had  not  yet  appeared  in  action.  The  rebellion  till  then 
had  been  carried  on  by  the  mere  Irish,  and  CONFINED  TO 
ULSTER,  to  some  few  counties  in  Leinster,  and  that  of 
Leitrim,  in  Connaught."372 

*  "  Their  first  intention  went  no  farther  than  to  strip  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  Protestants  of  their  power  and  possessions ;  and, 
unless  forced  to  it  by  opposition,  not  to  shed  any  blood."373 

"  It  was  resolved"  by  the  insurgents  "  not  to  kill  any,  but 
where  of  necessity  they  should  be  forced  thereunto  by  opposi- 
tion."374 

"  Resistance  produced  some  bloodshed :  and,  in  some  in- 
stances, private  revenge,  religious  hatred,  and  the  suspicion  of 
some  valuable  concealment,  enraged  the  triumphant  rebels  to 
insolence,  cruelty,  and  murder.  So  far,  however,  was  the 
ORIGINAL  SCHEME  of  the  conspiracy"  [mark  well  these  words  : 
— the  original  scheme  of  the  conspiracy]  "  at  first  pursued,  that 
few  fell  by  the  sword,  except  in  open  war  and  assault"315 

372  Carte,  I.  243.  373  Warner,  47. 

374  Temple,  65,  37S  Leland,  III.  137. 


ANALYSIS    OF    A    LEGENDARY   TALE.         339 

as  O'Conally  swore  to,  there  would  have  been 
some  evidence  produced  from  some  of  the  con- 
spirators :  but  notwithstanding  the  lords  justices 
had  recourse  to  the  execrable  aid  of  the  rack,  and 
put  Mac-Mahon  and  others  to  the  torture,*  there 
is  not,  in  the  examinations  of  the  former,  a  single 
word  to  corroborate  the  cut-throat  part  of  O'Co- 
nally's  deposition.  The  examinations  of \the 
rest  were  never  published. 

LIL  There  is  not  to  be  found  in  Temple, 
nor  Borlase,  nor  Carte,  nor  Warner,  nor  Leland, 
nor  Clarendon,  nor,  as  far  as  we  have  seen,  in 
Rushworth,  the  examination  of  a  single  person 
engaged  in  a  conspiracy  which  was  said  to  extend 
throughout  the  whole  kingdom,  except  those  of 
Mac-Mahon  and  lord  Macguire  !  That  of  the 
latter  was  not  taken  till  March,  1642. 

*  "  The  first  person  PUT  TO  THE  RACK,  was  Mac-Mahon  ; 
whom  the  reader  must  remember  to  have  been  taken  on  O'Co- 
nally's  information,  when  the  conspiracy  was  discovered.  I 
copied  his  examination  from  the  bishop  of  Clogher's  MSS.  in 
the  College  Library  :  and  on  that  examination,  he  had  nothing 
but  hearsay  evidence  to  give ;  which  amounts  only  to  his  hav- 
ing been  told  that  lord  Macguire,  Sir  P.  O'Neil,  and  Philip 
O'Reilly,  were  the  chief  conspirators ;  that  all  the  chief  Pa- 
pists in  Parliament  last  summer,  knew  and  approved  of  the 
rebellion ;  that  the  committee  then  employed  in  England  would 
procure  an  order  from  the  king  to  proceed  in  their  rebellious 
courses  ;  that  he  was  told,  last  October,  that  the  king  had  giv- 
en a  commision  to  seize  all  the  garrisons  and  strong  holds; 
but  he  doth  not  say,  he  ever  saw  such  a  commission.1'3 

378  Warner,  176. 


340  VINDICLE   HIBERNICA,. 

Perhaps  the  preceding  analysis  of  this  misera- 
ble legend  might  supersede  the  necessity  of  add- 
ing any  thing  further  on  the  subject.  But  its 
great  importance,  and  the  deep  solicitude  we  feel 
to  dispel  the  thick  mists  with  which  prejudice 
and  fraud  have  overspread  it,  induce  us  to  place 
it  in  a  new  form,  and  bring  it  more  home  to  the 
mind  of  the  reader.  The  reasons  for  adopting 
this  measure  will  probably  so  far  satisfy  the  read- 
er, as  to  preclude  the  necessity  of  an  apology. 

QUERIES. 

Is  there  a  man  in  the  world  who  can  seriously 
believe : — 

I.  That  a  Catholic  COLONEL,  engaged  in  a  plot 
to  murder  the  Protestants,  would  send  fifty  miles 
for  a  Protestant,  SERVANT  to  a  Protestant  gentle- 
man, an  inveterate  enemy  to  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics, as  an  accomplice  ? 

II.  That  a  journey  of  a  hundred  and  ten  or  a 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  could  be  performed  in 
three  days  and  a  half,  the  sun  rising  at  seven,  and 
setting  at  frve,  at  a  season  of  the  year  when  the 
rains,  then  usually  prevalent,  must  have  rendered 
the  roads  almost  impassable  ;  and  by  a  man  who 
knew  nothing  of  the  business  which  led  to  the 
summons  he  had  received,  and  who,  of  course, 
had  no  temptation  to  make  any  extraordinary 
exertion  ? 


WAS   NOT    O'CONALLY   A    PERJURER  ?        341 

III.  That  a  stranger,  arriving  in  the  suburbs  of 
a  city  an  hour  after  sun-set,  and  fatigued  with  a 
long  journey,  should,  without  any  aid  from  the 
moon,  immediately  find  out  the  lodgings  of  an- 
other stranger,  who  had  arrived  the  same  after- 
noon ? 

IV.  That  Sir  William  Parsons,  who  had,  at 
nine  in  the  evening,  received  intelligence  of  a 
plot,  to  explode  at  ten  the  next  morning,  and 
the  names  of  some  of  the  principal  conspirators, 
should  be  so  misguided,  as  to  send  back  the 
drunken  informer,  "  to  get  out  of  Mac-Mahon  as 
much  certainty  of  the  plot  as  he  could,"  instead 
of  immediately  apprehending  the  conspirators  ? 

V.  That  when  the  informer  returned  to  the 
lords  justices,  he  would  be  allowed  to  go  to  bed, 
before  taking  his  examination  ? 

VI.  That  when  he  had  slept  himself  sober,  and 
made  circumstantial  deposition  of  such  alarming 
particulars,  the  privy  council  would  have  been 
such  idiots  as  to  take  no  other  precaution  than 
merely  "  to  have  a  watch  set  privately  upon  the 
lodgings  of  Mac-Mahon,  and  also  upon  lord  Mac- 
guire,"  as  if  they  had  been  plotting  to  rob  orch- 
ards or  hen-roosts,  to  bar  out  a  school-master, 
break  lamps  in  a  midnight  frolic,  or  attack  the 
watchmen,  instead  of  plotting  to  seize  the  castle, 
subvert  the  government,  and  cut  the  throats  of 
one  or  two  hundred  thousand  people  ? 

VII.  That  a  privy  or  even  a  common  council  of 
the  wise  men  of  Gotham  would  not.  under  such 


342  VIND1CIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

circumstances,  have  instantly  apprehended  the 
conspirators,  instead  of  "  sitting  all  night  in  coun- 
cil," upon  one  of  the  simplest  points  ever  dis- 
cussed, and  which  could  have  been  decided  in 
five  minutes,  as  well  as  in  five  hours,  five  weeks, 
or  five  years ;  on  which  the  most  prompt  and 
decisive  measures  were  imperiously  necessary ; 
and  at. a  moment  when,  if  there  were  any  truth 
in  the  statement  of  O'Conally,  the  salvation  or 
destruction  of  the  state  might  depend  on  a  single 
hour  ? 

VIII.  That  having  taken  the  precaution,   on 
Friday  night,  of  "  setting  a  watch  privately  upon 
the  lodgings  of  lord  Macguire,"  thereby  establish- 
ing their  belief  that  he  was  an  accomplice  in  the 
plot,  they  would  not  have  arrested  him  at  the 
same  time  they  arrested  Mac-Mahon,  but  waited 
till  conference  with  the  latter  and  others,  and 
calling  to  mind  Sir  William  Cole's  letter,  which 
led  them  to  "  gather  that  the  lord  Macguire  was 
to  be  an  actor  in  surprizing  the  castle  of  Dublin  ?" 

IX.  That  a  conspiracy,  which  was  to  explode 
throughout  the  whole  kingdom  on  the  23d  of 
October,  should  be  arrested  in  Leinster,  Con- 
naught,  and  Munster,  by  the  detection  of  it,  in 
Dublin,  a  few  hours  before  the  appointed  time  ? 

X.  That  if  it  had  been  intended  to  murder 
all  the  Protestants  throughout  the  kingdom,  who 
would  not  join  the  conspirators,  there  would  have 
been  no  intelligence  of  a  single  murder  on  the 
25th,  or  that,  on  the  29th,  the  lords  justices 


WAS    NOT    O'CONALLY  A   PERJURER?        343 

should  explicitly  declare,  that  the  insurrection 
was  "  confined  to  the  mere  old  Irish  in  the  pro- 
vince of  Ulster,  and  others  who  had  joined  them?" 

XI.  That  though  the  lords  justices  had  recourse 
to  the  execrable  expedient  of  putting  Mac-Mahon 
and  others  to  the  rack,  they  should  not  have 
extorted  a  word  from  any  of  them,  to  support 
the  charge  of  murderous  intentions,  if  any  con- 
spiracy had  existed,  for  "cutting  off  all  the  Pro- 
testants and  English  throughout  the  kingdom  ?" 

XII.  That  if  there  were  a  general  conspiracy, 
and  of  course  a  large  assemblage  of  people  in 
Dublin,  for  the  purpose  of  seizing  the  castle  on 
the  23d,  the  lords  justices  would  not  have  been 
able,  on  the  morning  of  that  day,  to  apprehend 
more  than  two  of  the  leaders  and  a  few  common 
servants  ? 

XIII.  And  finally,  whether,  the  deposition  of 
O'Conally  being  incontrovertibly  established  as 
false,  and  he  of  course  perjured,  in  the  two  vital 
points, — 

I.  The  universality  of  the  plot,  and 

II.  The  determination  to  massacre  all  who 
would  not  join  in  it, 

There  can  be  any  credit  whatever  attached  to 
the  remainder  of  his  testimony  ?  And  whether 
it  does  not  necessarily  follow,  that  the  whole 
was  a  manifest  fraud  and  imposture,  designed  to 
provoke  insurrection,  and  lead  to  its  usual  and 
inevitable  result. — confiscation  ? 


344  VIND1CLZE    IIIBEHNICJt. 

Before  the  reader  decides  on  answers  to  these 
queries,  it  is  hoped  he  will  bear  in  mind  the 
strong  facts  adduced  in  Chapter  XIV.  to  prove 
that  the  seventeenth  century  was,  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  word,  the  age  of  perjury,  forgery, 
and  fabricated  plots.  He  will  there  see,  that 
in  London,  at  that  period,  the  boasted  courts  of 
justice  were,  as  we  have  said,  mere  slaughter- 
houses, where  the  depositions  of  men,  stained 
and  covered  over  with  crimes  of  the  most  atro- 
cious nature,  as  the  leopard  is  covered  with  spots, 
were  received,  in  cases  where  the  lives  of  inno- 
cent men  were  at  stake,  and  were  finally  immo- 
lated. He  will  likewise  behold  the  horrible  fact, 
that  the  testimony  of  a  man  whose  perjury  was 
detected  in  open  court,  and  there  confessed  by  him- 
self, was  afterwards  received,  and  was  the  means 
of  consigning  innocent  persons  to  the  ignomi- 
nious death  of  the  gallows. 

Let  him  also  bear  in  mind,  that  forged  plots, 
supported  by  perjury,  and  occasionally  by  the 
stupid  and  clumsy  contrivance  of  letter-dropping,* 
had  been  one  of  the  steady  and  uniform  machines 
of  the  government  ofr  Ireland,  from  the  invasion 
to  that  period  ;  and  had  produced  the  forfeiture 
of 'millions  of  acres. 

And  further,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that  all  the 
writers,  Clarendon,  Carte,  Warner,  Leland,  Gor- 
don, fyc.  agree,  that  the  grand  object  of  the  lords 
justices  was,  in  the  beginning,  to  extend  the 

*  Supra,  168. 


WAS   NOT    O'CONALLY  A   PERJURER?        345 

flames  of  civil  war ;  and,  when  the  insurrection 
had  by  these  means  become  general,  to  prevent 
a  cessation  of  hostilities,  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
ducing extensive  confiscations.  This  point  being 
of  primary  importance,  we  shall  devote  a  short 
chapter  to  it,  immediately  succeeding  the  present 
one. 

With  all  these  strong  facts  taken  into  view,  we 
then  invite  a  decision;  and  entertain  no  doubt 
of  a  favourable  verdict. 

On  this  subject  we  stand  committed,  in  the 
face  of  ah1  the  enlightened  men  in  Christen- 
dom ;  and  have  no  hesitation  in  pledging  our- 
selves, that  if  any  independent  and  upright  judge 
or  lawyer  of  any  court  in  France,  Germany,  Eng- 
land. Scotland,  Ireland,  or  the  United  States,  will 
pronounce  affirmative  answers  to  the  above  que- 
ries, so  as  to  imply  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  the 
conspiracy,  as  deposed  to  by  the  "  Protestant 
gentleman,"  alias  " servant"  we  will  cheerfully 
consent  to  have  this  book  burned  by  the  hands 
of  the  common  hangman,  and  will  suppress  it 
ourselves. 


44 


(     346      ) 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  lords  justices  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of 
peace.  Corroboration  of  their  guilt.  Success- 
ful in  their  endeavours  to  prolong  and  extend 
the  horrors  of  war.  Execrable  policy  of  the 
English  Parliament. 

THE  tenor  of  the  narrative  of  the  origin  of 
the  insurrection  in  1641,  as  detailed  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  hears  such  strong  internal  evi- 
dence of  fraud  and  imposture,  as  can  hardly  fail 
to  convince  every  man  of  candour,  that  it  was 
a  concerted  and  nefarious  plan,  for  the  purpose 
of  goading  the  Irish  into  insurrection,  and  con- 
tinuing the  system  of  spoliation,  of  which  the 
history  of  Ireland  presents  to  the  harrowed  feel- 
ings of  the  reader  one  unbroken  series. 

This  evidence  derives  important  corroboration 
from  the  subsequent  conduct  of  the  rulers  of  the 
country,  which  of  itself  would  be  sufficient  to 
convict  them,  even  had  the  story  been  so  well 
concocted  as  to  wear  a  plausible  aspect.  This 
conduct  we  now  expose  to  the  consideration  and 
abhorrence  of  the  reader. 


GUILT  OF  LORDS  JUSTICES.        347 

As  a  preliminary,  we  presume  it  will  hardly  be 
denied,  that  those  who  are  opposed  to  a  resto- 
ration of  peace  ;  who  use  every  effort  to  extend 
the  horrors  of  war ;  who  expect  to  profit  hy  that 
extension ;  and  who  devour  the  anticipated  pro- 
fits, may,  without  any  unreasonable  jealousy,  be 
suspected,  unless  there  be  strong  reasons  to  the 
contrary,  of  having  been  instrumental  in  the  com- 
mencement of  war.  But  where,  in  addition  to 
these  circumstances,  there  appear,  as  in  this  in- 
stance, in  their  own  narrative,  manifest  fraud  and 
deception,  then  we  have  that  strong  degree  of 
presumptive  evidence  of  which  alone  the  nature 
of  the  case  admits. 

We  undertake,  therefore,  to  prove,  by  testi- 
mony the  most  irrefragable  : — 

I.  That  the  lords  justices  left  nothing  undone 
to  extend  the  flames  of  civil  war,  and  to  involve 
in  the  confiscation  attendant  on  it  all  the  estated 
men  in  the  kingdom  ;* 

*  "  It  is  certain  that  the  lords  justices,  not  only  by  their 
words  and  actions,  expressed  their  unwillingness  to  stop  the 
growth  of  the  rebellion  (as  appeareth  undeniably  in  their  re- 
fusing the  offers  which  both  the  earl  of  Ormond  and  the  Par- 
liament of  Ireland  made  to  suppress  it)  but  showed  also  a 
desire  to  increase  the  distempers  of  the  nation,  and  rvere  often 
heard  to  wish,  that  the  number  were  greater  of  such  as  became 
criminal"31'1 

"  The  marquis  of  Ormond  detested  the  violent  and  destruc- 
tive counsels  and  measures  of  the  lords  justices,  which  had 
spread  the  rebellion;  were  ruinous  to  his  majesty's  affairs ;  and 
likely  to  effect  the  utter  desolation  of  his  country"5™ 

377  Carte,  I.  259.  378  Idem,  338. 


348  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

II.  That  they,  and  their  friends  in  England, 
took  infinite  pains  to  defeat  every  attempt  for  the 
restoration  of  peace,  or  even  a  cessation  of  hos- 
tilities, on  any  terms  whatever ;  and  were,  there- 
fore, with  the  rage  of  demons,  determined  on  a 
war  of  extermination ;  and 

"  An  Irish  parliament  sat  for  three  days  in  Dublin.  By  ex- 
pelling the  members  actually  in  rebellion,  and  by  excluding 
those  who  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  they  were 
reduced  to  an  inconsiderable  number.  Yet  they  breathed  the 
utmost  fury  against  the  Romish  party ;  declared  for  a  rigor- 
ous execution  of  the  penal  statutes ;  and  urged,  both  to  the  king 
and  English  Parliament,  the  necessity  of  new  and  severe  laws 
against  recusants.  The  English  parliament  echoed  these  sen- 
timents. The  bills  were  prepared  for  transmission,  and  the 
utmost  vengeance  denounced  against  Popery  ;  as  if  their  sole 
purpose  -were  to  exasperate  the  insurgents  to  the  utmost,  or  as 
if  they  had  been  already  completely  reduced."379 

"  To  involve  as  many  as  possible  in  the  guilt  of  rebellion  was 
part  of  the  plan  adopted  by  the  party  of  the  lords  justices, 
whose  great  object  was  an  extensive  forfeiture  of  lands.  Their 
agents  were  indefatigable  in  the  procuring  of  indictments,  not 
only  against  open  rebels,  but  also  those  whose  conduct  was  at 
all  capable  of  being  brought  into  question.  Against  the  gen- 
try of  the  Pale  was  principally  directed  the  rage  of  their  pro- 
secution."380 

"  It  is  too  evident,  that  as  the  supine  carelessness  of  some 
did  encourage  the  Irish  to  rebel,  so  there  were  others  in  power, 
who  were  so  taken  up  with  the  contemplation  of  forfeitures, 
that  they  rather  increased  the  fuel,  than  took  care  to  suppress 
the  flame."381 

'  379  Leland,  III.  197.  38°  Gordon,  I.  403. 

381  Nalson,  II.  629. 


GUILT  OF  LORDS  JUSTICES.       349 

III.  That  they  devoured  in  idea  the  estates  of 
those  whom  they  goaded  into  insurrection.* 

The  evidence  produced  in  the  second  chapter, 
page  58  to  62,  might  be  deemed  sufficient  for  the 
purpose.  It  is  copious,  conclusive,  and  irresist- 
ible. But  more  than  ordinary  pains,  and  a  greater 
host  of  testimony  than  usual,  are  necessary  for  a 
writer  who  enters  the  lists  against  inveterate 
opinions,  long  regarded  as  incontrovertible,  and 
cherished  under  the  invigorating  and  congenial 

*  "  The  lords  justices,  in  a  private  letter  of  their  own  to  the 
speaker,  exclusive  of  the  rest  of  the  council,  besought  the  Com- 
mons to  assist  them  with  a  grant  of  some  competent  proportion 
of  the  rebels'  lands  !  Here  the  reader  will  find  the  key  that 
unlocks  the  whole  secret  of  their  iniquitous  practices  ;  and  here 
he  will  find  the  motives  to  the  orders  they  gave  for  receiving  no 
submissions ;  for  issuing  no  proclamations  of  pardon  at  first,  as 
the  Parliament  had  suggested  ;  and  in  short  for  all  their  back- 
wardness in  putting  an  end  to  the  rebellion,  of  which  several 
opportunities  offered  j  and  consequently  for  their  sacrificing 
the  peace  and  happiness  of  their  country,  and  the  lives  of 
thousands  of  their  fellow  subjects."382 

"  Extensive  forfeitures  -were  the  favourite  object  of  the  chief 
governors  and  their  friends.  The  Commons  of  England  had 
very  early  petitioned  that  the  king  would  not  alienate  any  of 
the  escheated  lands,  that  might  accrue  to  the  crown  from  the 
rebellion  in  Ireland  :  and  they  had  lately  proceeded  in  a 
scheme  for  raising  money  from  the  lands  thus  expected  to  es- 
cheate.  A  bill  was  framed  for  repaying  those  who  should  ad- 
vance certain  sums,  for  suppressing  of  the  rebels,  (as  was 
pretended,)  by  vesting  them  with  proportional  estates  in  Ire- 
land, on  terms  highly  advantageous  to  a  new  English  planta- 
tion. It  evidently  tended  to  exasperate  the  malcontents,  and  to 
make  all  accommodation  desperate :  but  it  was  not  on  this  ac- 
count less  acceptable  to  the  popular  leaders."383 

332  Warner,  199.  333  Leland,  III.  186, 187. 


350  V1NDICI.E    HIBERNICJE. 

influence  of  bigotry,  selfishness,  and  strong  pre- 
judice. We  therefore  proceed  to  produce  facts, 
to  establish  these  important  positions. 

A  proclamation,  of  an  ambiguous  character, 
was  published  in  January,  1642,  which  appeared 
to  promise  pardon  to  such  of  the  insurgents  as 
laid  down  their  arms,  and  submitted  themselves 
to  the  government.  Numbers  of  the  lords  of  the 
Pale,  who  had  been  reluctantly  goaded  into  the 
war  by  the  brutal  ferocity  of  Sir  Charles  Coote, 
acting  under  the  desolating  orders  of  the  lords 
justices,  gladly  availed  themselves  of  this  invita- 
tion ;  laid  down  their  arms }  surrendered  to  the 
duke  of  Ormond ;  claimed  his  protection  ;  and 
flattered  themselves  with  the  fond,  but  alas !  de- 
lusive hope  of  being  restored  to  peace  and  safety. 
Had  they  been  received  with  the  indulgence  and 
forgiveness  the  proclamation  appeared  to  offer, 
their  example  would  have  been  generally,  if  not 
universally,  followed,  and  the  horrors  of  war 
brought  to  an  early  close ;  or  if  any  number  .re- 
jected the  proffered  mercy,  they  could  have  been 
readily  crushed. 

The  lords  justices  were  as  dreadfully  alarmed 
as  a  fell  tiger,  whose  prey  has  nearly  escaped  his 
ravenous  jaws.  All  their  hopes  of  plunder  were 
likely  to  be  defeated,  and  their  golden  harvest  of 
confiscation  to  be  snatched  out  of  their  hands,  at 
the  moment  when  they  regarded  it  secure  be- 
yond the  power  of  fate.  They  adopted  a  most 
daring  and  profligate  measure,  which  relieved 


GUILT  OF  LORDS  JUSTICES.        351 

them  from  a  result  that  would  have  defeated  all 
their  schemes,  but  which  blasts  their  character 
for  ever,  and  exposes  them  to  infamy  and  abhor- 
rence. They  ordered  Ormond  to  admit  of  no 
more  submissions  ;  to  receive  those  that  offered 
to  surrender  themselves,  merely  as  prisoners  of 
and,  in  order  to  avoid  the  danger  of 


*  "  They  who  had  not  engaged  in  actual  hostilities,  they  who 
were  only  accused  of  harbouring,  or  paying  contributions  to 
the  rebels,  crowded  to  the  earl  of  Ormond,  and  claimed  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  royal  proclamation.  The  lords  justices,  who 
not  only  favoured  the  designs  of  their  friends  in  England,  but 
expected  to  have  their  own  services  rewarded  by  a  large  portion 
of  forfeitures,  resolved  to  discourage  these  pacific  dispositions. 
Ormond  was  directed  to  make  no  distinction  between  noble- 
men and  other  rebels  ;  to  receive  those  who  should  surrender 
only  as  prisoners  of  war  ;  and  to  contrive  that  they  should  be 
seized  by  the  soldiers,  without  admitting  them  to  his  presence. 
They  who  were  sent,  in  custody,  to  Dublin,  though  men  of 
respectable  characters,  and  families  engaged  in  no  action  with 
the  rebels,  some,  sufferers  by  their  rapine,  averse  to  their  pro- 
ceedings, known  protectors  of  the  English,  were  all  indiscrimi- 
nately denied  access  to  the  justices  ;  closely  imprisoned  ;  and 
threatened  with  the  utmest  severity  of  the  law."384 

"  A  cessation  was  recommended  by  Clanricarde,  as  a  means 
of  giving  them  some  leisure  to  reflect  on  their  precipitate  con- 
duct ;  to  recall  them  to  their  allegiance  ;  and  to  prevent  the  de- 
solation of  the  kingdom:  but  the  chief  governors  were  actuated 
by  different  motives.  They  severely  condemned  the  protection 
granted  to  Galway  :  their  orders  were  express  and  perempto- 
ry, that  the  earl  should  RECEIVE  NO  MORE  SUBMISSIONS  : 
every  commander  of  every  garrison  was  ordered  not  to  pre- 
sume to  hold  any  correspondence  with  the  Irish,  or  Papists  ; 
to  give  no  protections;  but  to  prosecute  all  rebels  and  their  har- 
bour ers  withjire  and  sword."385 

384  Leland,  III.  188.  385  Idem,  198. 


352  VINU1C1/E  H1BERNICJE. 

being  forced  to  pardon  any  of  the  repentant  in- 
surgents, who  might  induce  the  duke  to  pledge 
his  honour  for  their  safety,  they  directed  him  to 
contrive,  as  far  as  practicable,  that  they  should 
be  seized  by  the  soldiers,  and  thus  debarred  of 
access  to  his  person.  These  orders  were  given 
to  all  their  other  officers,  and  produced  the  hor- 
rible effects  the  wretched  miscreants  intended,  to 
prolong  and  extend  the  horrors  of  war,  and  mul- 
tiply confiscations  to  their  utmost  wish. 

They  had  subsequently  instructions  from  the 
Parliament  of  England  to  issue  a  proclamation, 
offering  a  pardon,  on  certain  conditions,  to  such 
as  would  submit  to  their  authority,  and  abandon 
the  cause  of  the  insurgents.  With  these  instruc- 
tions, they  did  not  comply;  and  assigned  the  futile 
reason,  that  their  former  proclamation  had  been 
unavailing,  although  they  had  themselves,  by 
their  sinister  policy,  rendered  it  nugatory.* 

*  "  In  another  instance,  the  conduct  of  these  wretchecLgover- 
nors  was  still  more  suspicious.  The  parliament  of  England 
had  recommended  the  offer  of  a  general  pardon  to  such  rebels 
as  should  submit  within  a  certain  time,  to  be  limited  by  the 
lords  justices.  No  proclamation  was  published,  no  pardon 
offered,  in  consequence  of  these  instructions.  To  palliate  this 
omission,  they  pleaded  the  inefficacy  of  their  former  procla- 
mations :  the  first  of  which  only  called  on  the  king's  sub- 
jects to  abandon  the  rebels,  without  any  positive  assurance  of 
mercy  :  the  other  offered  a  pardon,  not  to  the  rebels  of  Ulster, 
where  the  insurrection  chiefly  raged,  but  to  those  of  Longford 
and  Louth,  Meath,  and  Westmeath.  In  the  two  last  counties 
no  body  of  rebels  had  appeared.  And  if  any  outrages  or  in- 
surrections were  to  be  suppressed,  the  lords  justices  contrived 


GUILT  OF  LORDS  JUSTICES.       853 

A  cessation  of  hostilities  had  been  an  object 
ardently  desired  by  the  king,  and  by  the  leaders 
of  the  Irish  insurgents :  by  the  former,  in  the 
hope  of  deriving  aid  from  his  forces  in  Ireland, 
towards  subduing  the  armies  of  the  Parliament ; 
and  by  the  latter,  to  be  restored  once  more  to  the 
blessings  of  peace.  The  bigotry  of  Charles,  and 
the  sinister  policy  of  Ormond,  procrastinated  this 
desirable  event,  and  aided  the  views  of  the  lords 
justices  and  their  party,  who  had  thrown  every 
possible  difficulty  in  the  way  of  an  accommoda- 
tion. It  was,  nevertheless,  at  length  concluded, 
in  despite  of  all  the  obstacles  that  folly  and  wick- 
edness had  devised.  It  is  at  this  time  hardly 
credible,  but  it  is  sacredly  true,  that  this  act,  at 
which  all  good  men  must  have  rejoiced ;  which 
did  not  compromit  an  iota  of  the  honour,  interest, 

to  defeat  the  effect  of  their  pardon,  by  exceptions  and  conditions. 
All  freeholders  of  these  four  counties;  all  who  had  shed  blood 
in  any  action ;  all  who  were  in  prison  for  spoil  or  robbery, 
were  expressly  excluded  from  mtrcy.  To  others,  it  was  ten- 
dered on  condition  of  their  submitting  within  ten  days  after 
the  proclamation,  and  restoring  all  the  property  they  had 
seized,  which  had  quickly  been  dispersed  through  various 
hands.  Such  a  proclamation  was  evidently  absurd  and  insi- 
dious. A  pardon  offered  in  the  name  of  the  English  parlia- 
ment, must  have  had  greater  influence  than  any  act  of  an  Irish 
ministry,  despised  and  suspected  by  the  body  of  the  nation. 
But  the  chief  governours  and  their  creatures  were  confident  of 
support,  and  experienced  in  the  art  of  converting  forfeitures  to 
their  nvn  advantage."™ 

386Leland,  III.  16O. 
45 


354  VINDICIJE    HIBERNIC2E. 

or  advantage  of  the  ruling  powers  in  either  Eng- 
land or  Ireland ;  and  which  took  place  at  a  time 
when  the  Irish  had  manifestly  the  advantage  over 
their  enemies,  in  point  of  military  force  and  re- 
sources, excited  as  much  uproar,  horror,  and^in- 
dignation,  in  both  islands,  as  if  it  had  totally  over- 
thrown the  existing  order  of  things,  extirpated  the 
Protestant  religion,  and  given  a  complete  ascen- 
dency to  the  Roman  Catholics.*  It  affords  a  most 
important  addition  to  the  various  proofs  we  have 

*  "  The  heads  of  that  faction,  who,  by  their  measures,  direc- 
tions, and  creatures,  had  used  as  much  skill  and  industry  to  im- 
prove and  continue  the  rebellion,  as  ever  the  first  conspirators 
did  to  begin  it,  were  enraged  to  see  a  stop  put  to  the  further 
effusion  of  blood,  and  a  foundation  laid  for  a  pacification,  which 
would  defeat  their  schemes  of  extirpation. 

"  They  protested  against  all  peace  with  the  rebels,  without  re- 
gard to  the  terms  of  any  ;  which  must  have  entailed  a  perpe- 
tual war  on  the  kingdom  of  Ireland,  till  the  nation  itself  was 
in  a  manner  extirpated."387 

"  In  the  northern  province,  the  Scottish  general,  Monroe, 
disclaimed  the  cessation.  And  though,  when  he  had  first 
slaughtered  some  unoffending  Irish  peasants,  he  consented  to 
wait  the  orders  of  the  state  of  Scotland,  or  Parliament  of  Eng- 
land, before  he  should  proceed  to  further  acts  of  hostility,  yet 
he  soon  received  instructions  to  carry  on  the  war,  without  re- 
gard to  the  king's  chief  governor."388 

"  The  rebellion  had  been  suppressed  without  any  of  their 
assistance,  were  it  not  for  their  violent  measures  and  threats 
of  extirpation,  which  terrifying  and  making  the  nobility  and 
gentry  of  English  race  desperate,  hurried  them  in  spite  of  their 
animosity  against  the  Old  Irish,  into  an  insurrection.  For  the 
like  detestable  purposes,  they  had  starved  the  war  all  the  time 

387  Carte,  I.  453.  388  Leland,  III.  250. 


HORRIBLE    THIRST    OF    BLOOD.  355 

already  given,*  of  the  insatiable  and  ravenous 
thirst  of  the  blood  and  estates  of  the  Irish,  by 
which  the  rulers  of  the  two  countries  were  at  that 
time  devoured.f  The  English  Parliament  passed 
strong  and  decisive  resolutions^  and  entered  a 
most  solemn  protestation,  against  the  cessation, 
distinguished  by  the  strongest  marks  of  the  san- 
guinary, fanatical,  bigoted,  and  intolerant  spirit  of 
the  age,  which  is  so  loudly  extolled  for  its  libe- 
rality and  illumination.  In  this  wretched  per- 

it  was  carrying  on  in  Ireland,  and  were  angry  that  a  stop  was 
put  to  it  for  a  time  by  the  cessation"31*9 

f  "  The  great  body  of  Covenanters  in  Ulster  despised  the 
whole  negotiation;  the  Parliamentarians  of  Munster  opposed 
any  peace  ruith  the  Irish.  These  reformers,  in  the  fulness  of 
their  zeal,  could  be  contented  only  with  the  extirpation  of 
Popery,  and  the  rebellious  Irish  race."390 

£  Sept.  20, 1643.  "  It  was  resolved,  upon  the  question,  that 
this  house  doth  hold  that  a  present  cessation  of  arms  rvith  the 
rebels  in  Ireland  is  destructive  to  the  Protestant  refig-ion,  dis- 
honourable to  the  English  nation,  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of 
all  the  three  kingdoms,  and  therefore  do  declare  they  neither  do 
nor  can  consent  or  approve  of  any  treaty  of  a  cessation  with 
the  rebels,  pretended  to  be  begun  by  the  king's  commission."391 

Dec.  30, 1643.  "  Ordered,  that  the  adventurers  of  this  house 
for  lands  in  Ireland,  and  the  body  of  adventurers  in  London, 
do  meet  at  the  Grocers'  Hall,  on  Thursday,  in  the  afternoon,  at 
two  of  the  clock,  and  take  into  their  serious  consideration,  by 
what  -ways  and  means  the  British  army  in  Ulster,  opposing  the 
cessation,  may  be  maintained  and  encouraged  to  proceed  in  pro- 
secution of  that  -war  of  Ireland  against  the  rebels"3®1 

s89  Carte,  I.  463.  39°  Leland,  III.  331, 

391  Journals,  III.  248.  392  Idem,  353. 

*  Supra,  58. 


356  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICjE. 

formance,  replete  with  sophistry  and  declama- 
tion, they  have  the  hardihood,  we  had  almost 
said  the  blasphemy,  to  assert,  "  in  the  face  of 
high  heaven,"  that  "#  cessation  of  arms"  would, 
by  a  suspension  of  religious  persecution,  "pro- 
voke the  wrath  of  a  jealous  God!"*  Well  may  we 
exclaim,  "  Why  sleep  the  thunders  of  heaven  ?" 
when  wicked  men,  perpetrating  the  worst  of 
crimes,  varnish  them  over  with  such  miserable 
imposture,  to  delude  and  deceive  mankind  !  Ne- 
ver did  the  mind  of  man  conceive,  or  pen  or 
tongue  express,  a  more  abominable  or  execrable 
idea  than  is  here  unblushingly  advanced  :  for  if 
there  be  any  thing  peculiarly  calculated  "  to  pro- 
voke the  wrath  of  a  jealous  God,"  it  must  be, 
not  "a  cessation"  of  the  progress  of  slaughter 

*  "  The  Lords  and  Commons  have  reason  to  declare  against 
this  plot  and  design  of  a  cessation  of  arms  !!  !  as  being  treat- 
ed and  carried  on  without  their  advice  ;  so  also  because  of  the 
great  prejudice  which  will  thereby  redound  to  the  Protestant 
religion,  and  the  encouragement  and  advancement  which  it 
will  give  to  the  practice  of  Popery,  when  these  rebellious  Pa- 
pists shall,  by  this  agreement,  continue  and  set  up  with  more 
freedom  their  idolatrous  worship,  their  Popish  superstitions, 
an4  Romish  abominations  in  all  the  places  of  their  command, 
to  the  dishonouring  of  God,  the  grieving  of  all  true  Protestant 
hearts,  the  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  crown  of  England,  and 
to  the  provoking  of  the  wrath  of  a  jealous  God;  as  if  both 
kingdoms  had  not  smarted  enough  already,  for  this  sin  of  too 
much  conniving  at,  and  tolerating  of  antichristian  idolatry, 
under  pretexts  of  civil  contracts  and  politick  agreements."393 

393  Rushworth,  V.  353. 


HORRIBLE    THIRST    OF    BLOOD.  357 

and  desolation,  but  the  wanton  waste  and  destruc- 
tion of  man,  made  to  his  own  image  and  likeness. 

"  One  to  destroy  is  murder  by  the  law, 
And  swords  uplifted  keep  the  wretch  in  awe ; 
To  murder  thousands  takes  a  glorious  name, 
War's  sacred  art, — and  strews  the  road  to  fame." 

Let  us  add  a  most  singular  and  disgraceful 
fact ;  that,  by  this  cessation,  which  afforded  the 
only  chance  of  retrieving  his  affairs,  Charles 
lost  some  of  his  most  devoted  followers,  whose 
rancorous  and  murderous  spirit  of  hostility  to- 
wards the  Irish  Roman  Catholics,  outweighed 
even  their  ardent  attachment  to  their  monarch, 
and  their  idolatrous  veneration  for  the  old  re- 
gime.* 

This  conduct  merits  serious  consideration.  A 
devouring  civil  war  rages  through  a  country,  and 
renders  it  a  fit  abode  for  devils  incarnate ;  merce- 
nary soldiers  spread  havoc  and  desolation  around; 
nothing,  sacred  or  profane,  escapes  their  rage ; 
the  altars  are  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  human 
victims  ;  Humanity  turns  aside  from  the  hideous 
and  loathsome  scenes,  and  finds  it  not  wonderful 
that  "  it  repented  the  Lord  that  he  had  made  man 
upon  the  earth."  How  infuriate  then  must  be  the 

*  "  Several  of  the  king's  adherents  ascribed  the  cessation  to 
the  counsels  of  the  queen  and  her  favourites.  Some  regarded 
it  as  a  contradiction  to  those  solemn  protestations,  which 
Charles  had  frequently  made  against  Popery ;  and  declared, 
that  after  this  fatal  discovery  of  his  real  sentiments ^  they  could 
rirj  longer  continue  to  support  his  cause!  !  !"39* 

394  Leland,  III.  245. 


358  VINDICIJE    HIBERNIC.E. 

passions  of  those  who  shudder  at  the  delightful 
idea  of  sheathing  the  sword  ;  and  who,  for  the 
sake  of  plundering  the  devoted  objects  of  their 
vengeance,  seek  to  carry  on  an  interminable  war 
of  extermination !  for  this  must  have  been  the 
obvious  and  inevitable  end  of  those  who  opposed 
a  cessation  of  hostilities.  There  is  probably  no 
crime  in  the  long  bead-roll  of  human  wicked- 
ness, more  atrocious  than  the  prolongation,  un- 
necessarily, of  war,  and  particularly  of  civil  war. 
And  yet  of  this  heinous  offence  many  men  were 
guilty,  whose  names  rank  high  in  English  history; 
but  whose  ambition,  avarice,  and  rage  against  the 
Irish,  steeled  them  against  the  tender  cries  of 
lacerated  humanity,  which  loudly  pleaded  to  stay 
the  progress  of  the  devouring  sword,  and  restore 
the  reign  of  blessed  peace  and  tranquillity. 

"  Remember  him,  the  villain,  righteous  heaven, 
In  thy  great  day  of  vengeance  !    Blast  the  traitor 
And  his  pernicious  counsels,  who,  for  wealth, 
For  pow'r,  the  pride  of  greatness,  or  revenge, 
Would  keep  his  native  land  in  civil  wars; 
When  murders,  rapes,  and  massacres  prevail; 
When  churches,  palaces,  and  cities  blaze, 
And  desolation  covers  all  the  land."3'5 

A  petition  of  "  the  divines  of  the  assembly," 
delivered  to  Parliament,  July  19,  1643,  contains 
the  following  extraordinary  and  extravagant  de- 
claration, which  the  petitioners  must  have  known 
to  be  utterly  destitute  of  even  the  shadow  of 
foundation.  It  is  grounded  on,  and  nearly  ver- 

395  Rowe. 


FLAGRANT    FALSEHOOD.  359 

batim  with,  the  deposition  of  the  fabulist,  Dean 
Maxwell  :* 

"  In  this  rebellion,  so  barbarous  and  bloqdy,  154,000  Pro- 
testants, men,  women,  and  children,  were  massacred  in  that 
kingdom,  between  the  23d  of  October,  when  the  rebellion  broke 
forth,  and  the  1st  of  March  following;  by  the  computation  of 
the  priests  themselves,  who  were  present,  and  principal  actors 
in  these  tragedies,  and  who  were  directed  by  some  chief  rebels 
of  Ireland  to  make  this  computation,  lest  they  should  be  re- 
ported to  be  more  bloody  than  in  truth  there  was  cause.  All 
which  appears  by  the  examination  of  arch-deacon  Maxwell, 
who  lived  a  long  time  a  prisoner  with  Sir  Phelim  O'Neil's 
mother,  and  was  there  when  this  computation  was  brought 
'in.'" 


"396 


To  give  currency  to  this  wretched,  absurd,  and 
notorious  imposture,  the  English  House  of  Com- 
mons, with  an  utter  disregard  of  truth  and  cha- 
racter, ordered  it  to  be  read  by  the  ministers  of 
every  parish  within  the  kingdom,  in  their  several 
churches  and  chapels  ;f  thus  making  the  temples 
of  the  Living  God  the  instruments  of  poisoning 
the  minds  of  his  worshippers,  by  the  propagation 
of  flagrant  falsehood. 

f  July  25,  1643.  "  It  is  this  day  ordered  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  the  ministers  of  every  parish  within  the  king- 
dom shall  read  this  declaration  in  their  several  churches  and 
chapels,  on  the  next  fast-day  after  the  same  shall  come  to  their 
hands,  after  the  ending  of  the  first  sermon,  and  before  the  be- 
ginning of  the  next."397 

*  Supra,  55.        336  Rushworth,  V.  355.        397  Idem,  356. 


(    36°.  ) 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Was  there  a  massacre  of  the  Protestants  in 
Ireland  in  1641  ? 

"  Fortiter  calumniare  :  aliquid  adhaerebit." 

HAVING,  as  we  hope  and  trust,  satisfactorily 
disposed  of  the  question  of  the  pretended  con- 
spiracy, in  1641,  for  a  general  massacre  of ."  such 
of  the  Protestants  as  would  not  join"  the  mur- 
derers, we  now  proceed  to  investigate  and  com- 
bat the  legendary  tales  of  the  immense  numbers 
which,  in  the  miserable  romances,  honoured  with 
the  prostituted  titles  of  histories  of  the  Irish  re- 
bellion in  1641,  are  stated  to  have  been  massa- 
cred by  the  Irish  :  and  we  feel  confident  that  we 
shall  satisfy  the  reader,  that  they  are  entitled  to 
exactly  the  same  degree  of  credit  as  lord  Claren- 
don's millenium,  which  has  figured  to  so  much 
advantage  in  our  preceding  chapters. 

In  order  to  proceed  correctly  in  the  investiga- 
tion, our  first  step  will  be.  to  ascertain  the  exact 
state  of  the  allegations  which  we  mean  to  dis- 
prove. We  will  therefore  let  the  parties  narrate 
their  own  tales.  If  they  should  fail  to  impose 
on  the  reader  of  the  present  day,  they  have  no 


TALES    OP    TERROR.  361 

merit  in  the  failure :  as  they  spared  no  pains  to 
delude  and  deceive  the  world,  and  hitherto,  un- 
fortunately, have  been  but  too  successful : 

"  It  would  be  almost  endless  to  give  a  particular  account  of 
all  the  detestable  cruelties  acted  by  these  incarnate  devils  up- 
on the  innocent  English,  of  whom  they  destroyed  near  300,000 
in  a  few  months  ///"39» 

"  The  depopulations  in  this  province  of  Munster  do  well 
near  equal  those  of  the  whole  kingdom  !  !  /"3" 

"  There  being,  since  the  rebellion  first  broke  out,  unto  the 
time  of  the  cessation  made  Sept.  15,  1643,  which  was  not  full 
two  years  after,  above  300,000  British  and  Protestants  cruelly 
murdered  in  cold  blood,  destroyed  some  other  way,  or  expelled 
out  of  their  habitations,  according  to  the  strictest  conjecture 
and  computation  of  those  who  seemed  best  to  understand  the 
numbers  of  English  planted  in  Ireland,  besides  those  few  which 
fell  in  the  heat  of  fight  during  the  war."400 

"  The  day  appointed  for  executing  this  bloody  design  was 
the  23d  of  October,  on  which  day  they  were  to  rise  all  over 
the  island.  The  design  was  really  executed,  as  projected  :  and 
it  is  said,  on  that  and  the  following  days  above  forty  thousand 
English  Protestants  were  massacred  by  the  Irish!  !  !"*°l 

"  Above  154,000  Protestants  were  massacred  in  that  king- 
dom from  the  23d  October  to  the  1st  March  following."402 

"  By  some  computations,  those  who  perished  by  all  these 
cruelties  are  supposed  to  be  150  or  200,000.  By  the  most 
moderate,  and  probably  the  most  reasonable  account,  they  are 
made  to  amount  to  forty  thousand  !  if  this  extenuation  itself  be 
not,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  somewhat  exaggerated!"*® 

"  The  innocent  Protestants  were  upon  a  sudden  disseized 
of  their  estates ;  and  the  persons  of  above  200,000  men,  wo- 
men, and  children  were  murdered,  many  of  them  with  exqui- 
site and  unheard  of  tortures, within  the  space  of  one  month!!!"*0* 

399  Burton,  37.  3W  Temple,  103.  «°°  Idem,  6. 

401  Rapin,  IX.  340.       «»  Idem,  343.       *»  Hume,  III.  545. 
404  May,  81.  Frankland,  903.  Baker,  532. 

46 


362  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

"  A  general  insurrection  of  the  Irish  spread  itself  over  the 
whole  country,  in  such  an  inhuman  and  barbarous  manner, 
that  there  were  forty  or  fifty  thousand  of  the  English  Pro- 
testants murdered,  before  they  suspected  themselves  to  be  in 
any  danger,  or  could  provide  for  their  defence,  by  drawing 
together  into  towns  or  strong  houses."404 

"  Though  they  were  prevented  of  surprising  Dublin,  by  a 
mere  accident,  yet  through  the  country,  it  has  been  thought, 
that  in  one  -week  they  massacred  very  near  one  hundred  thou- 
sand persons,  men,  women,  and  children! !  T406 

That  "  Saul  slew  his  thousands,  and  David  his 
tens  of  thousands,''  was,  in  "  olden  time,"  sung 
by  the  women  of  Israel.  Every  Philistine  was 
magnified  into  ten ;  every  ten  into  a  hundred ; 
and  every  hundred  into  a  thousand.  But  the 
amplifying  powers  of  the  Jewish  women  fade 
into  insignificance,  when  compared  with  those  of 
the  Anglo-Hibernian  writers.  Every  Englishman 
that  fell  in  battle,  or  otherwise,  was  murdered. 
Every  man  was  magnified  into  a  hundred;  every 
ten  into  a  thousand  ;  and  every  hundred  into  ten 
thousand. 

Such  a  spirit  of  exaggeration  has  prevailed, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  in  all  ages.  Even 
in  common  occurrences,  hardly  calculated  to 
excite  any  interest,  we  find,  every  day  of  our 
lives,  that  the  statements  of  current  events  are 
so  highly  coloured,  as  to  differ  full  as  much 
from  the  reality,  as  the  countenance  of  a  mere- 
tricious courtezan,  who  has  exhausted  her  stores 
of  carmine  and  white-lead,  differs  from  the  un- 

405  Clarendon's  E.  II.  40«  Warwick,  199. 


WAYWARD    FATE    OF   IRELAND.  363 

disguised  countenance  of  an  innocent  country 
damsel,  who  depends  wholly  on  the  pure  orna- 
ments of  beneficent  Nature.  This  being  undeni-' 
ably  the  case  on  topics,  where  no  temptation  to 
deception  exists,  how  dreadful  must  be  the  false- 
hood and  delusion  in  cases  like  the  present, 
where,  as  we  have  already  stated,  and  now  repeat, 
ambition,  avarice,  malice,  bigotry,  national  hatred, 
and  all  the  other  dire  passions  that  assimilate  men 
to  demons,  are  goaded  into  activity. 

The  difficulty,  stated  in  the  last  chapter,  of 
procuring  evidence  to  invalidate  O'Conally's  le- 
gend, was  very  considerable ;  but  not  so  formi- 
dable, by  any  means,  as  we  have  to  encounter  in 
the  present  one.  We  are  not,  however,  discou- 
raged: we  trust  to  the  force  of  truth;  to  the 
obvious  falsehood  in  these  statements ;  and,  above 
all,  to  the  candour  of  an  enlightened  age. 

In  all  other  cases,  but  that  of  the  history  of 
Ireland,  to  convict  a  witness  of  gross,  palpable, 
and  notorious  falsehood,  would  be  sufficient  to 
invalidate  the  whole  of  his  evidence  :  but  such 
has  been  the  wayward  fate  of  that  nation,  that 
the  most  gross  and  manifest  forgeries,  which 
carry  their  own  condemnation  with  them,  are 
received  by  the  world  as  though  they  were 

"  Confirmations  strong  as  proofs  of  holy  writ." 

Or,  when  some  are  found  too  monstrous  to  be 
admitted,  their  falsehood  and  absurdity  do  not 
impair  the  credulity  in  the  rest  of  the  tales  de- 
pending on  the  same  authority. 


364  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

The  materials  for  Irish  statistics,  at  that  early 
period,  are  rare ;  a  deficiency  which  involves  this 
subject  in  considerable  difficulty.  Had  we  ample 
and  correct  tables  of  the  population  of  Ireland, 
our  task  would  be  comparatively  easy ;  and  we 
could  put  down  all  those  tales,  with  as  much  ease 
as  we  have  stamped  the  seal  of  flagrant  falsehood 
on  so  many  impostures  as  we  have  already  inves- 
tigated. 

But  we  avail  ourselves  of  a  sound  rule,  that  we 
must  employ  the  best  evidence  that  the  nature 
and  circumstances  of  the  case  will  admit ;  and, 
fortunately,  we  have  some  data,  of  authority  very 
far  from  contemptible,  on  which  to  reason,  in  the 
present  instance ;  which  will  shed  the  light  of 
truth  on  this  intricate  question,  and  dispel  the 
dense  clouds  with  which  it  has  been  environed 
by  fraud  and  imposture. 

Sir  William  Petty,  the  ancestor  of  the  Lans- 
downe  family,  laid  the  foundation  of  a  princely 
fortune,  by  the  depredations  perpetrated  on  the 
Irish,  after  the  insurrection  of  1641.  Of  course, 
he  had  no  temptation  to  swerve  from  the  truth 
in  their  favour :  on  the  contrary,  it  was  his  in- 
terest, equally  with  the  other  possessors  of  the 
estates  of  the  plundered  Irish,  to  exaggerate  their 
real  crimes,  and  to  lend  the  countenance  of  his 
reputation  to  their  pretended  ones.  Hence  his 
testimony,  on  this  ground,  and  as  a  cotempo- 
rary,  cannot,  so  far  as  it  tends  to  exonerate  those 
upon  whose  ruin  he  raised  his  immense  estate, 


A   FAIR    VIEW.  365 

be  excepted  against  by  the  enemies  of  the  Irish. 
We  will  therefore  freely  cite  him  in  the  case : 
and  the  reader  will  at  once  perceive  to  what  an 
extent  delusion  has  been  carried,  on  this  subject. 
He  states  the  aggregate  of  the  Protestants  who 
perished  in  eleven  years,  to  have  been  11 2,0  00  ;40T 
of  whom  "  two-thirds  were  cut  off  by  war,  plague, 
and  famine."    It  is  obvious  to  the  meanest  capa- 
city, if,  of  112,000,  the  whole  number  that  fell  in 
that  space  of  time,  two-thirds  were  cut  off  by  war, 
plague,  and  famine,  that  those  who  fell  out  of 
war,  in  eleven  years,  were  only  37,000  !    We 
hope  to  prove,  that  even  this  statement,  so  com- 
paratively moderate,  is  extravagantly  beyond  the 
truth.     But,  admitting  it  to  be  correct,  what  a 
wonderful  difference  between  37,000  in  eleven 
years,  and  the  hundreds  of  thousands  in  a  few 
months,  that  make  such  an  appalling  figure  in 
the  various  "tales  of  terror,"    imposture,   and 
perjury,  so  feelingly  narrated  by  Temple,  Borlase, 
Clarendon,  May,  Baker,  Frankland,  Rapin,  Le- 
land,  and  all  their  coadjutors  !     Does  not  the 
credit  of  their  tales,  when  thus  brought  to  the 
test  of  the  talisman  of  truth,  disappear,  and, 

u  Like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision, 
Leave  not  a  trace  behind  ?" 

Here  a  remarkable  trait,  which,  as  we  have 
stated,  characterises  Irish  history  beyond  that  of 
any  other,  displays  itself.  The  writers  are  not 

407  Petty,  18. 


366  VINDICLE   HIBERNIC*. 

merely  at  variance  with  each  other,  but  with 
themselves :  and  there  is  as  much  discrepancy 
between  different  portions  of  each  history,  as 
between  that  history  and  truth.  We  have  seen 
Carte,  Leland,  Clarendon,  and  Warner,  convict 
Carte,  Leland,  Clarendon,  and  Warner,  of  most 
egregious  errors,  to  use  no  harsher  term  :  and 
the  reader  must  have  perceived,  that  our  sole 
reliance,  for  refutation  of  their  mis-statements, 
has  been  almost  altogether  on  themselves. 

In  like  manner,  we  shah1  satisfactorily  prove, 
that  Sir  William  Petty  confutes  himself,  beyond 
the  power  of  redemption. 

"  Mark  how  a  plain  tale  shall  put  him  down." 

He  bequeathed  to  posterity  some  statistical 
tables,  which  throw  considerable  light  on  this 
subject.  They  are  very  meagre,  it  is  true ;  but, 
meagre  as  they  are,  we  believe  there  are  no 
others ;  at  all  events,  we  know  of  none :  and 
must  therefore  avail  ourselves  of  them. 

He  informs  us,  that  the  population  of  Ireland, 
in  1641,  was  1,466,000  ;*  and  that  the  relative 
proportion  of  the  Protestants  to  the  Catholics, 
was  as  two  to  eleven  :f  of  course,  it  follows, 

*  "  This  shows  there  were,  in  1641,  1,466,000  people."408 
f  u  The  proportion  was  as  2  to  II."409 

We  for  the  present  admit  this  proportion  ;  as,  however 
exaggerated  the  number  of  the  Protestants  may  be,  it  does  not 
affect  the  point  at  issue.  But,  from  various  circumstances, 
we  doubt  whether  there  was  one  Protestant  to  eleven  Roman 
Catholics. 

408  Petty,  18. .  409  Ibid. 


TALES    OP    TERROR.  367 

that  the  population  was  thus  divided: — about 
1,241,000  Roman  Catholics,  and  225,000  Pro- 
testants. 

From  this  conclusion  there  is  no  appeal.  The 
whole  number  of  Protestants  in  the  island  could 
not  have  exceeded  225,000.  The  supplies  of 
people  from  England  and  Scotland,  until  after 
the  final  defeat,  capture,  condemnation,  and  death 
of  Charles  I.  were  inconsiderable :  and  surely 
there  does  not  exist  a  single  man  that  can 
believe,  that  out  of  225,000,  there  could  have 
been  112,000  destroyed,  and  the  residue  been 
able  to  baffle  and  defeat  the  insurgents,  who 
comprised  the  great  mass  of  the  nation.  It 
will  therefore,  we  trust,  be  allowed,  as  an  irre- 
sistible conclusion,  that  Sir  William  Petty's  cal- 
culation, although  so  far  more  moderate  than  any 
of  the  "  tales  of  terror"  we  have  quoted  at  the 
commencement  of  this  chapter,  is  most  extrava- 
gantly over-rated,  probably  trebled  or  quadru- 
pled ;  and  must,  of  absolute  necessity,  be  false. 

This  being  the  case  with  the  lowest  of  the 
calculations,  what  astonishment  must  be  excited 
by  Burton's  300,000,  in  a  few  months ;  Temple's 
300,000,  in  less  than  two  years ;  May's  200,000, 
in  one  month  ;  Warwick's  100,000,  in  one  week  ; 
or  Rapin's  40,000,  in  a  few  days !  Surely  there 
is  not,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  any  parallel 
case  of  such  gross,  palpable,  shocking,  and  abomi- 
nable deception.  Can  language  be  found  strong 
or  bold  enough  to  mark  the  dishonour  of  those 


368  V1NDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

who  knowingly  propagated  such  falsehood,  or  the 
folly  or  neglect  of  those  who  adopted  and  gave 
it  currency  ?  Their  names  ought  to  be  held  up. 
as  "  a  hissing  and  reproach,"  to  deter  others  from 
following  in  their  foul  and  loathsome  track  of 
calumny  and  deception. 

On  Milton's  626,000  we  have  already  slightly 
touched.*  We  shall  therefore  now  pass  him 
over,  and  notice  some  of  the  other  writers. 

We  have  fully  established,  that  in  three  of  the 
provinces,  there  was  not  only  no  massacre,  but 
no  insurrection,  for  five  or  six  weeks :  of  course, 
during  that  period,  warfare  of  every  description 
was  confined  to  Ulster,  where  the  Protestants 
were  by  no  means  so  numerous  as  elsewhere. 
But,  admitting  that  they  were  equally  divided  in 
the  four  provinces,  then  the  number  in  Ulster 
was  not  quite  60,000  ;f  and  they  possessed  seve- 
ral walled  towns,  had  considerable  forces,  and 
not  merely  defended  themselves  against  the  at- 
tacks of  the  insurgents,  but  frequently  vanquish- 
ed them.  It  is  therefore  certain  that  the  num- 
bers that  fell,  in  any  way,  must  have  been  very 

inconsiderable,  compared  with  the  bloated  and 

^  -  •-•*''  i . 

f  Carte,  as  will  appear  at  the  close  of  this  chapter,  estimates 
the  Protestants  in  Ulster  at  about  double .60,000,  although  he 
rates  the  whole  number  in  Ireland  at  only  220,000.  His  as- 
sumption is  obviously  incorrect ;  but,  as  it  cannot  possibly 
affect  any  of  our  conclusions,  we  deem  it  unnecessary  to  go 
into  an  examination  of  its  errors. 

*  Supra,  20. 


IMPOSTURE   DETECTED.  369 

extravagant  statements  whereby  the  world  has 
been  deceived  on  this  subject. 

Yet  Thomas  May,  secretary  to  the  Long  Par- 
liament, who  published  a  history  of  that  Parlia- 
ment, about  six  years  after  the  commencement 
of  the  insurrection,  had  the  inexpressible  wicked- 
ness or  folly,  or  both,  to  state,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  there  were  "  200,000  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren murdered,  within  the  space  of  one  month"* 

It  cannot  be  necessary  to  go  into  detail,  to 
refute  this  statement.  A  single  glance  at  the 
preceding  facts,  the  aggregate  of  the  Protestant 
population  of  the  country,  and  the  limited  range 
of  warfare  during  the  entire  "  month"  that  May 
takes  into  view,  will  satisfy  the  reader  how  utterly 
regardless  this  writer  was  of  even  the  slightest 
semblance  of  truth. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Baker  and  Frankland,  in 
their  annals,  copy  the  statement  of  May,  without 
the  variation  of  a  word. 

We  shah1  furnish  another  case,  more  barefaced 
and  profligate,  if  possible,  than  May's.  When  the 
cessation  was  agreed  upon,  there  was,  as  already 
stated,  a  most  furious  outcry  raised  on  the  subject, 
throughout  the  three  kingdoms ;  and  the  army  in 
Munster,  in  a  remonstrance  against  it,  hazarded 
the  daring  falsehood,  that  the  "  depopulations"  of 
Munster  nearly  "  equalled  those  of  ah1  the  rest  of 
the  kingdom  ;"f  although  it  was  even  then  pre- 

*  May,  ubi  supra.  f  Temple,  103, 

47 


370  VINDICIJE    HIBERNIOK. 

tended,  that  there  had  been  154,000  massacred 
in  Ulster ;  to  which  let  the  reader  add  what  this 
army  might  choose  to  set  down  for  Leinster  and 
Connaught,  which  would  probably  be  at  least 
25,000  for  each ;  thus  allowing  above  200,000 
for  the  rest  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  same  num- 
ber for  Munster  ! ! !  or  400,000  for  the  whole, 
out  of  225,000  ! ! ! ! 

One  more  case  shall  close  this  odious  detail. 
We  have  seen,  even  by  the  account  of  the  lords 
justices  themselves,  that,  on  the  29th  of  October, 
six  days  after  the  commencement  of  the  insur- 
rection, it  was  confined  to  "  the  mere  old  Irish 
in  the  province  of  Ulster,  and  others  who  ad- 
hered to  them."*  We  have  likewise  seen,  from 
Temple,  Leland,  and  Warner,  that  at  the  com- 
mencement, the  insurgents  so  far  adhered  to  "  the 
original  scheme  of  the  conspiracy"  that,  "  at  first, 
few  fell  by  the  swordrf  except  in  open  war  and 
assault :"  and  yet  Sir  Philip  Warwick  gives  us  to 
understand,  tfiat  in  one  week  there  were  100,000 
massacred,  than  which,  we  may  venture  to  assert, 
a  more  consummate  and  atrocious  falsehood  never 
was  ushered  into  the  world,  for  the  purposes  of 
deception.  Sir  Philip  is  wholly  inexcusable  ;  as 
his  work  was  not  published  during  the  convul- 
sions of  that  period,  when  there  might  have  been 
some  difficulty  in  divesting  himself  of  the  influ- 
ence of  the  raging  passions  which  then  convulsed 
the  political  elements.  It  did  not  appear  until 

*  Supra,  334.  f  Leland,  ubi  supra. 


IMPOSTURE   DETECTED.  371 

after  the  restoration,  of  which  it  narrates  the 
occurrences. 

With  what  ineffable  disgust  and  abhorrence, 
then,  must  every  ingenuous  mind  revolt  at  such 
loathsome  frauds  and  impositions ! 

On  the  subject  of  the  pretended  massacre,  some 
of  the  observations  of  Carte  are  judicious  and 
unanswerable  ;  and  would  be  sufficient,  indepen- 
dent of  the  other  evidence  we  have  produced,  to 
put  down  forever  those  miserable  legends  about 
so  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  Protestants 
cut  off  in  a  few  weeks,  or  months,  or  years,  and 
to  stamp  on  the  foreheads  of  their  authors  the 
broad  seal  of  imposture.  He  states,  that  the  ex- 
travagant numbers,  asserted  to  be  massacred,  were 
"  more  than  there  were  of  English,  at  that  time, 
in  all  Ireland.'"*10 

"  Sir  William  Petty,"  he  adds,  "  computes  the  British,  in- 
cluding therein  both  English  and  Scotch,  to  be,  before  the  re- 
bellion, as  2  to  1 1  of  the  Irish  ,•  at  -which  rate,  there  were  about 
220,000  British  in  the  whole  kingdom  !  Now  it  is  certain,  that 
the  great  body  of  the  English  was  settled  in  Munster  and 
Leinster,  -where  very  few  murders  were  committed;  and  that 
in  Ulster,  which  was  the  dismal  scene  of  the  massacre,  there 
were  above  100,000  Scots,  who,  before  the  general  plantation 
of  it,  had  settled  in  great  numbers  in  the  counties  of  Down 
and  Antrim  :  and  new  shoals  of  them  had  come  over,  upon  the 
plantation  of  the  six  escheated  counties  :  and  they  were  so  very 
powerful  therein,  that  the  Irish,  either  out  of  fear  of  their 
numbers,  or  some  other  politic  reason,  spared  those  of  that 
nation,  making  proclamation,  on  pain  of  death,  that  no  Scots- 
man should  be  molested  in  body,  goods,  or  lands,  whilst  they 
raged  with  so  much  fury  against  the  English."411 

410  Carte,  I.  17T.  <"  Ibid. 


372  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

To  these  facts,  he  adds  the  following  reflec- 
tions : 

"  It  cannot  therefore  reasonably  be  presumed,  that  there  were 
at  most  more  than  20,OOO  English  souls,  of  all  ages  and  sexes, 
in  Ulster  at  that  time  :  and  of  these,  as  appears  by  the  lords 
justices'  letter,  there  were  several  thousands  got  safe  to  Dublin; 
besides  6,OOO  women  and  children,  which  captain  Mervyn  saved 
in  Fermanagh ;  and  others  that  got  safe  to  Derry,  Colerain, 
and  Carrickfergus,  and  went  from  these  and  other  parts  into 
England."412  ,, 

It  is  obvious,  that  it  is  impossible  to  reconcile 
the  latter  part  of  this  quotation  with  the  rest ;  a 
case,  as  we  have  repeatedly  stated,  that  incessantly 
occurs  in  Irish  histories.  The  author  informs  us, 
on  rational  grounds,  that  there  were  "  not  more 
than  20,000  English  in  Ulster;"  that  "several 
thousands  got  safe  to  Dublin;"  that  "  6,000  women 
and  children  were  saved  in  Fermanagh;"  and  that 
"  others  got  safe  to  Derry,  Colerain,  and  Carrick- 
fergus." These  all-important  and  conclusive  facts 
he  connects  with  a  statement  of  "  the  extreme  cru- 
elty with  which  the  insurgents  raged  against  the 
English,"  and  with  a  notice  of  a  "  dismal  scene  of 
the  massacre"  the  subjects  of  which  massacre  are 
not  very  easily  found,  and,  at  all  events,  could  not 
have  been  very  numerous :  for,  let  us  add  toge- 
ther "  several  thousands,"  and  "  6,000,"  and  the 
«  others"  who  "  got  safe"  into  the  specified  towns, 
where  there  were  numerous  garrisons ;  where,  of 
course,  in  a  time  of  violence  and  commotion,  the 

*v  Carte,  I.  177. 


IMPOSTURE    DETECTED.  373 

inhabitants  of  the  circumjacent  country  would 
naturally  seek  refuge;  and  where,  it  is  not  extrava- 
gant to  suppose,  that  "the  others,"  who  thus  "got 
safe,"  might  have  amounted  to  some  thousands : 
let  us  then  deduct  the  aggregate  from  20,000,  the 
total  number  of  English,  and  we  shall  find  a  slen- 
der remainder.  But  the  plain  fact  is,  that  the 
writers  on  this  subject  are  so  haunted  by  the  idea 
of  a  massacre,  that  although  it  rests  on  the  sandy 
foundation  of  forgery  and  perjury,  as  shall  be  fully 
proved  in  the  sequel,  and  although  many  of  their 
own  statements,  in  the  most  unequivocal  manner, 
give  it  the  lie  direct,  their  minds  cannot  be  di- 
vested of  the  terrific  object.  These  passages  from 
Carte  furnish  a  strong  case  in  point.  The  most 
ardent  friend  of  Ireland  could  not  desire  a  much 
more  complete  proof  of  the  fallacy  of  the  ac- 
counts of  the  pretended  massacre,  than  is  here 
given  by  this  author  himself,  who,  nevertheless, 
wonderful  to  tell !  appears  to  resist  the  evidence 
of  his  own  facts,  and  to  be  blind  to  the  obvious 
inference  to  which  they  inevitably  lead. 

We  have  already  borne  strong  testimony  to 
the  general  correctness  of  the  intentions  of  Fer- 
dinando  Warner,  a  clergyman  of  the  church  of 
England,  as  displayed  throughout  his  "  History 
of  the  Rebellion  and  Civil  War  of  Ireland,"  with 
the  remarkable  exception  of  the  state  of  that 
country,  previous  to  1641,  in  which  he  has  fallen 
into  the  most  egregious  errors.  He  appears  to 
have  been  the  only  writer  who  has  gone  into  any 


374  V1NDICLK   HIBERNICJE. 

elaborate  investigation  of  the  legendary  tales  of 
the  pretended  massacre ;  and  his  views  of  the 
subject  well  deserve  the  most  serious  attention  of 
the  reader.  After  stating  the  uncertainty  of  the 
accounts,  and  the  consequent  difficulty  of  making 
an  exact  estimate,  he  pronounces  a  strong  and 
unequivocal  sentence  of  condemnation  on  the 
Munchausen  tales  we  are  combating  ;  and  avers, 
that 

"  It  is  easy  enough  to  demonstrate  the  falsehood  of  the  rela- 
tion of  every  Protestant  historian  of  this  rebellion."413 

He  proceeds  to  render  a  satisfactory  account  of 
the  grounds  on  which  this  statement  rests  : 

"  To  any  one  who  considers  how  thinly  Ireland  was  at  that 
time  peopled  by  Protestants,  and  the  province  of  Ulster  parti- 
cularly, -where  -was  the  chief  scene  of  the  massacre,  THOSE 

RELATIONS  UPON  THE  FACE  OF  THEM  APPEAR  INCREDI- 
BLE."414 

He  then  enters  into  an  elaborate  detail,  in  con- 
firmation of  this  opinion,  which  the  reader  will 
find  in  Chapter  I.  page  20,  and  which  reduces 
the  number  "murdered"  to  4,028;  and,  let  it  not 
be  forgotten,  nearly  one-half  of  even  this  number 
rests  wholly  on  "  report! 7" 

He  adds,  it  is  true,  nearly  double  that  number, 
who  fell  victims  to  ill-usage :  thus  making  an  ag- 
gregate of  about  12,000.  But  even  in  this  number 
he  himself  does  not  believe :  for  he  closes  with  a 
strong  and  decisive  condemnation  of  the  state- 

413  Warner,  296.  4»  Ibid. 


IMPOSTURE  DETECTED.          375 

ment,  in  the  following  remarkable  view  of  the 
subject : 

"  If  we  should  allow  that  the  cruelties  of  the  Irish,  out  of 
war,  extended  to  these  numbers,  which,  CONSIDERING  THE 

NATURE  OF  SEVERAL    OF    THE    DEPOSITIONS,    /  think    in   my 

conscience  we  cannot,  yet,  to  be  impartial,  we  must  allow  tVat 
there  is  no  pretence  for  laying  a  greater  number  to  their 
charge."415 

Thus  we  close  this  subject  with  stating,  that 
these  hundreds  of  thousands  are  reduced  by  Carte 
to  20,000,  less  "  several  thousands,"  and  "  6,000 
women  and  children,"  and  "others;"  and  by 
Warner  to  about  12,000,  a  large  portion  of  which, 
"  in  his  conscience,"  he  cannot  allow !  Would  it 
not  be  an  insult  to  the  reader,  to  offer  another 
word,  to  prove  the  utter  falsehood  of  all  the  ter- 
rific statements  given  of  the  subject,  whereby  the 
world  has  been  so  long  and  so  grossly  deceived  ? 

415  Warner,  296. 


(376     ) 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

#' 

View  of  the  spirit  of  the  hostile  parties  in  Ireland. 
Murderous  and  never-enough-to-be-execrated 
orders  of  the  lords  justices,  and  of  the  Long 
Parliament.  Illustrious  contrast  on  the  part 
of  the  Irish. 

BEFORE  we  enter  on  the  investigation  of  the 
horrible  and  unparalleled  cruelties  alleged  to  have 
been  perpetrated  by  the  Irish  in  this  civil  war,  we 
regard  it  as  a  duty  to  present  a  view  of  the  spirit 
manifested  in  the  orders  given  to  the  command- 
ing generals  on  both  sides,  which  will  shed  im- 
portant light  on  this  interesting  subject ;  and  add 
still  further  corroboration  to  the  various  proofs 
we  have  already  adduced,  of  the  unprecedented 
deceptions  practised  upon,  and  the  erroneous 
impressions  entertained  by,  the  world  at  large, 
respecting  Irish  affairs. 

He  must  be  a  mere  sciolist  in  history,  who 
requires  to  be  informed,  that  the  most  rigorous 
military  discipline  has  too  frequently,  in  every 
age,  been  utterly  inadequate  fully  to  restrain  the 
ferocious  and  sanguinary  spirit  of  mercenary 
armies,  which,  accustomed  to  scenes  of  blood 
and  desolation,  are  too  prone  to  be  steeled 


CHEERING    CONTRAST.  377 

against  the  calls  of  humanity.  It  is  well  known, 
moreover,  that  civil  wars  are  almost  always  sig- 
nalized by  incomparably  more  ruthless  barbarity 
than  wars  between  hostile  nations.  But,  if  the 
wisest  regulations,  to  restrain  military  violence, 
be  always  found  difficult,  and  too  often  impos- 
sible, to  be  carried  into  effect,  even  in  well-regu- 
lated armies,  how  frightful  must  be  the  result, 
when  murder  and  desolation  are  not  merely  tole- 
rated, but  absolutely  commanded;  when  the  rulers 

"  Cry  havoc,  and  let  slip  the  dogs  of  war ;" 

when  military  outrage  is  excited,  by  orders  to 
slaughter  the  unoffending ;  and  when  the  incapa- 
city to  resist  the  violence  of  one  party,  is  made  a 
pretext  for  murder  by  the  other ! 

It  will  astonish  the  reader  to  learn,  that  the 
tenants  of  the  regions  below  do  not  differ  more 
from  the  purest  cherub  or  seraph  that  the  mind 
of  man  can  conceive,  than  the  fiend-like  spirit  of 
the  orders  promulgated  by  the  lords  justices,  from 
those  issued  by  the  leaders  of  the  Irish.  None 
of  those  destroyers  of  mankind,  wlio 

"  Wade  thro'  seas  of  blood, 

And  walk  o'er  mountains  of  slaughtered  bodies  ;"41<J 

who  riot  in  human  misery ;  could  exceed  the  lords 
justices,  in  the  desolating  inhumanity  of  their 
orders,  which  breathed  nothing  but  an  infuriate 
spirit  of  havoc  and  devastation. 

416  Lee. 
48 


378  V1NDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

Their  commanders  were  directed  to  "  consume, 
destroy,  and  demolish  all  the  places  where  the  re- 
bels were  relieved  or  harboured "  to  "  kill,  slay, 
and  destroy  all  the  rebels  and  their  relievers."417 
But  this  was  not  all.  nor  half.  How  can  we  pro- 
ceed to  relate  the  execrable  tale  ?  It  will  hardly 
be  believed.  For  the  honour  of  human  nature, 
it  were  to  be  wished  that  it  could  be  utterly  blot- 
ted from  the  records  of  history  :  but  this  is  im- 
possible. There  it  remains,  and  there  it  will 
eternally  remain,  to  the  never-dying  infamy  of 
those  miscreant  rulers.  The  orders  close  with  a 
direction  "  to  kill  and  destroy  all  the  men  able  to 
bear  arms"  in  the  places  where  the  rebels  were 
"  relieved  and  harboured!!!!"* 

*  "  Order  of  the  Lords  Justices  and  Council  to  the  earl  of 
Ormond. 

"  By  the  lords  justices  and  council, 

WM.  PARSONS, 
Jo.  BORLACE. 

"  The  rebels  having  assembled  themselves  in  arms  in  hostile 
manner,  with  banners  displayed,  in  several  places  about  this 
city  of  Dublin,  intending  and  openly  professing  to  starve  this 
city  and  this  state,  and  his  majesty's  forces  here,  that  so  the 
rebels  may  the  more  easily  possess  themselves  of  the  kingdom, 
deprive  his  majesty  of  his  royal  crown  and  sovereignty  here, 
and  root  out,  murder,  and  destroy,  all  the  British  and  Protes- 
tants in  the  kingdom, 

"  It  is  resolved,  That  it  is  fit  that  his  lordship  do  endeavour 
with  his  majesty's  forces  to  -wound,  kill,  slay,  and  destroy,  by 
all  the  ways  and  means  he  may,  all  the  said  rebels,  and  their 
adherents  and  relievers;  and  burn,  spoil,  waste,  consume,  de- 

417  Carte,  III.  61. 


MURDEROUS    ORDERS.  379 

The  murderous  spirit  of  these  orders  for  the 
destruction  of  the  harbourers  of  the  insurgents, 
must  excite  the  most  unqualified  horror  and  in- 
dignation in  every  man  not  utterly  destitute  of 
the  feelings  of  humanity.  It  may  be  readily  con- 
ceived, that  defenceless  individuals,  scattered  over 
an  extensive  country,  cannot  possibly  prohibit 
armed  bodies  of  men  from  access  to  their  houses 
or  plantations  ;  nor  can  the  inhabitants  of  cities, 
towns,  or  villages,  destitute  of  fortifications  or 
garrisons,  prevent  their  entrance  ;  the  attempt 
would  ensure  destruction,  and  could  only  be  dic- 
tated by  absolute  insanity  :  and  nothing  but  the 
most  flagrant  destitution  of  justice  could  ever 
induce  commanders  to  punish  the  bare  submis- 
sion to  overwhelming  force  and  violence,  with 
the  rigour  and  severity  due  to  the  perpetration 
of  the  highest  species  of  crimes. 

Suppose,  for  a  moment,  that  a  civil  war  raged 
in  this  country,  which  God  forbid :  suppose,  fur- 
ther, that  an  army  of  five  thousand  men  were  to 

stroy,  and  demolish,  all  the  places,  towns,  and  houses,  where  the 
said  rebels  are,  or  have  been,  relieved  and  harboured,  and  all  the 
corn  and  hay  there ;  and  kill  and  destroy  all  the  men  there  in- 
habiting able  to  bear  arms  !  !  !  ! 

"  Given  at  his  majestie's  castle  of  Dublin,  23d  February, 
1641-2. 

R.  DILLON,  F.  WILLOUGHBY, 

THO.  ROTHERAM,        J.  TEMPLE, 

AD.  LOFTUS,  ROBERT  MEREDITH."41* 

418  Carte,  III.  61. 


380  V1NDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

possess  themselves,  by  force,  of  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia. What  sentence  would  be  pronounced 
on  the  commanders  of  the  adverse  armies,  who, 
to  punish  submission  to  violence,  which  our  citi- 
zens had  not  the  means  of  preventing,  should, 
after  the  expulsion  of  their  enemies,  order  an 
indiscriminate  slaughter  of  all  those  capable  of 
bearing  arms  ?  Would  they  not  deserve  to  expiate 
their  guilt,  by  the  most  cruel  torments  that  hu- 
man ingenuity  could  devise  ?  Yet  this  was  pre- 
cisely the  spirit  of  the  orders  issued  by  the  lords 
justices,  who  therefore  merit  to  be  ranked  with 
the  Neros,  the  Caligulas,  the  Domitians,  and 
those  other  monsters,  whose  supreme  delight 
was  in  the  immolation  of  the  human  species. 

This  chapter  being  devoted  merely  to  a  review 
of  the  spirit  with  which  the  orders  for  war  were 
issued  on  both  sides,  we  reserve  for  a  subsequent 
one  a  detail  of  the  barbarous  fidelity  with  which 
these  horrible  orders  were  carried  into  effect. 

It  must  sicken  every  friend  of  mankind,  to 
learn  that  the  English  Parliament  was  -  actuated 
by  the  same  shocking  spirit  of  extermination  to- 
wards the  Irish.  It  issued  an  ordinance,  agreed 
upon  after  due  deliberation,  that  "no  quarter 
should  be  given  to  any  Irishman  or  Papist  born  in 
Ireland  "  and  that  "  they  should  be  excepted  out  of 
all  capitulations"*  This  horrible  decree,  worthy 

*"  October  24,  1644. 

"  An  ordinance  of  the  Lords  and  Commons  assembled  in 
Parliament,  commanding  that  no  officer  or  soldier,  either  by 


MURDEROUS    ORDERS.  381 

of  a  pandemonium  of  fallen  angels,  Lucifer  pre- 
sident, and  Belzebub  secretary,  attaches  an  eter- 
nal blot  on  the  escutcheons  of  the  Hambdens,  the 
Pyms,  and  the  Essexes  of  that  body,  who,  in  their 
rancorous  and  remorseless  hatred  of  Ireland  and 

sea  or  land,  shall  give  any  quarter  to  any  Irishman,  or  to  any 
Papist  born  in  Ireland,  which  shall  be  taken  in  arms  against 
the  Parliament  of  England. 

"  The  Lords  and  Commons  assembled  in  the  Parliament  of 
England  do  declare,  that  no  quarter  shall  be  given  to  any  Irish- 
man, nor  to  any  Papist  born  in  Ireland,  which  shall  be  taken 
in  hostility  against  the  Parliament,  either  upon  the  sea,  or 
within  this  kingdom,  or  dominion  of  Wales  :  and  therefore  do 
order  and  ordain,  that  the  lord  general,  lord  admiral,  and  all 
other  officers  and  commanders,  both  by  sea  and  land,  shall  ex- 
cept all  Irishmen,  and  all  Papists  born  in  Ireland,  out  of  all  ca- 
pitulations, agreements,  and  compositions  hereafter  to  be  made 
with  the  enemy  :  and  shall,  upon  the  taking  of  every  such  Irish- 
man or  Papist  born  in  Ireland as  aforesaid,  forthwith  put  every 
such  person  to  death. 

"  And  it  is  further  ordered  and  ordained,  that  the  lord  gen- 
eral, lord  admiral,  and  the  committees  of  the  several  counties, 
do  give  speedy  notice  hereof,  to  all  subordinate  officers  and 
commanders,  by  sea  and  land  respectively;  who  are  hereby  re- 
quired to  use  their  utmost  care  and  circumspection,  that  this 
ordinance  be  duly  executed  :  and  lastly,  the  Lords  and  Com- 
mons do  declare,  that  every  officer  and  commander  by  sea  or 
land,  that  shall  be  remiss  or  negligent  in  observing  the  tenour 
of  this  ordinance,  shall  be  reputed  a  favourer  of  the  bloody  re- 
bellion of  Ireland,  and  shall  be  liable  to  such  condign  punish- 
ment as  the  justice  of  both  houses  of  Parliament  shall  inflict 
upon  him."419 

419  Rushworth,  V.  729.*  /*  - 

*  The  reader  is  requested  to  observe  that  this  volume  is  erroneously  paged; 
page  729  occurring  twice. 


382  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

Irishmen,  lost  sight  of  every  principle  of  huma- 
nity and  justice,  and  of  all  the  laws  of  civilized 
warfare. 

The  phraseology  of  this  ordinance  is  very  am- 
biguous, probably  through  design.  It  orders  to 
be  murdered, — for, 

"  Disguise  it  as  we  will," 

it  is  sheer,  downright  murder — it  orders,  we  say. 
to  be  murdered,  "  all  Irishmen  and  Papists  born 
in  Ireland."  The  sweeping  command  to  murder 
"  all  Irishmen,"  rendered  it  wholly  unnecessary 
to  add,  "  all  Papists  born  in  Ireland,"  unless  they 
wished  the  world  to  believe,  that  a  "  Papist  born 
in  Ireland"  was  a  species  of  being  different  from 
an  "  Irishman." 

To  cap  the  climax  of  this  atrocious  cruelty, 
and  to  guard  against  the  goadings  of 

"  The  tyrant  conscience," 

whereby  their  commanders  might  be  tempted  to 
yield  to  the  dictates  of 

"  Mercy  !  the  brightest  diadem  of  empire  ! 
Mercy,  that  does  distinguish  men  from  brutes," 

they  denounced  "condign  punishment"  against 
all  such  as  should  be  "  remiss  or  negligent"  in 
carrying  the  ordinance  into  execution.  They 
were  to  be  stigmatized  with  the  foulest  stain  that 
the  vocabulary  of  reproach  could  at  that  day  fur- 
nish ;  that  is,  "  to  be  reputed  favourers  of  the 
bloody  rebellion  of  Ireland,"  and  to  be  punished 
accordingly. 


CHEERING    CONTRAST.  383 

While  such  a  barbarous  and  murderous  decree 
imprints  its  inextinguishable  and  sanguinary  stain 
on  the  records  of  that  Parliament  and  party,  it 
requires  the  most  unblushing  impudence  and  ef- 
frontery to  continue  the  outrageous  abuse  of  the 
Irish,  for  the  pretended  murders  and  massacres 
of  2  or -300,000  men,  women,  and  children,  out 
of  a  population  not  exceeding  225,000  in  the 
aggregate  ! 

The  reader  may  perhaps  flatter  himself  with 
the  fond  hope  that  these  orders  were  not,  nor 
intended  to  be,  carried  into  operation.  Let  him 
not 

"  Lay  this  flattering  unction  to  his  souL" 

A  few  pages  hence,  he  will  find  that  the  sangui- 
nary rulers  found  sanguinary  ruffians,  to  carry 
their  sanguinary  mandates  into  effect,  in  the  true 
spirit  of  desolation  in  which  they  were  conceived. 
Far  different  was  the  spirit  by  which  the  ca- 
lumniated Irish  were  actuated.  They  denounc- 
ed the  strongest  sentence  of  excommunication 
not  merely  against  murderers,  but  against  thieves, 
spoilers,  robbers,  and  extorters ;  as  well  as  against 
all  such  as  should  favour,  receive,  or  any  way 
assist  them  ;*  and,  lest  this  denunciation  should 

*  "Articles  agreed  upon,  ordained  and  concluded,  in  the  general 
congregation,  held  at  Kilkenny,  May,  1642. 

"  We  declare  [the  present]  war,  openly  Catholic,  to  be  law- 
ful and  just;  in  -which  -war,  if  some  of  the  Catholics  be  found 
to  proceed  out  of  some  particular  and  unjust  title,  covetousnesst 


384  VINDICLE    HIBEKNICJE. 

prove  ineffectual,  they  ordered  their  generals  to 
punish  offenders  in  the  premises,  under  pain  of 
interdiction. 

These  orders  are  signed  by  three  archbishops, 
four  bishops,  and  twenty-one  other  dignitaries  of 
the  church,  of  various  degrees.  They  were  en- 
acted in  a  grand  council,  held  in  Kilkenny,  in 
May,  1642.  What  a  glorious,  what  an  honour- 
able contrast  for  Ireland,  between  the  spirit  they 
display,  and  that  of  the  murderous  ordinance  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  that  no  quarter  should  be 
given  to  any  Irishman!  or  that  of  the  lords  jus- 

cruelty,  revenge,  or  hatred,  or  any  such  unlawful,  private  inten- 
tions, we  declare  them  therein  grievously  to  sin,  and  therefore 
•worthy  to  be  punished  and  restrained  with  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sures, if  (advised  thereof)  they  do  not  amend. 

u  We  will  and  declare  all  those  that  murder,  dismember,  or 
grievously  strike;  all  thieves,  unlawful  spoilers,  robbers  of  any 
goods,  extorters  ;  together  -with  all  such  as  favour,  receive,  or 
any  ways  assist  them,  to  be  excommunicated,  and  so  to  remain 
until  they  completely  amend  and  satisfy,  no  less  than  if  they 
were  namely  proclaimed  excommunicated  : 

"  We  command  all  and  every  the  generals,  colonels,  cap- 
tains, and  other  officers  of  our  Catholic  army,  to  whom  it  ap- 
pertaineth,  that  they  severely  punish  all  transgressors  of  our 
aforesaid  command,  touching  murderers,  maimers,  strikers, 
thieves,  and  robbers  ;  and  if  they  fail  therein,  we  command  the 
parish  priests,  curates,  or  chaplains,  respectively,  to  declare 
them  interdicted  ;  and  that  they  shall  be  excommunicated,  if 
they  cause  not  due  satisfaction  to  be  made  unto  the  common- 
wealth, and  the  party  offended.  And  this  the  parish  priests 
or  chaplains  shall  observe,  under  pain  of  excommunication  of 
sentence  given  ipso  facto."430 

420  Rushworth,  V.  519,  520. 


CHEERING   CONTRAST.  385 

tices,  to  kill  all  the  males  able  to  bear  arms,  inha- 
biting in  places  where  the  rebels  (as  they  were 
falsely  styled)  were  harboured !  O,  much-abused 
country !  how  little  is  the  world  acquainted  with 
thy  horrible  sufferings  !  how  inadequately  does  it 
appreciate  thy  real  character !  To  what  wretched 
historians  has  thy  sad  tale  been  confided !  Will 
the  justice  of  heaven  never  avenge  thy  wrongs, 
nor  vindicate  thy  rights  ?  Must  centuries  still  roll 
on,  and  behold  the  countless  blessings,  which 
heaven  has  lavished,  with  liberal  hand,  on  one  of 
the  fairest  portions  of  the  globe,  blighted  and 
blasted  by  a  wretched  policy,  worthy  only  of 
ruthless  eastern  despotism  ? 


49 


(     386      ) 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Examination  of  the  cruelties  said  to  have  been 
perpetrated  by  the  Irish. 

"  I  could  a  tale  unfold,  whose  lightest  word 

Would  harrow  up  thy  soul ;  freeze  thy  young  blood ; 

Make  thy  two  eyes,  like  stars,  start  from  their  spheres  ; 

Thy  knotted  and  combined  locks  to  part, 

Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porcupine."— —Shakspeare. 

THE  frauds  and  falsehoods  which  we  have 
exposed  to  the  reprobation  of  the  reader,  respect- 
ing the  immense  number  of  persons  said  to  have 
been  murdered  during  the  insurrection  of  1641, 
have,  we  trust,  prepared  him  to  lend  an  impartial 
ear  to  the  exposure  of  frauds  and  falsehoods  far 
more  gross  and  shocking,  respecting  the  pretend- 
ed cruelties  of  the  insurgents. 

In  Chapter  XVII.  we  have  allowed  the  accusers 
to  prefer  their  charges  in  their  own  language, 
without  exaggeration  or  extenuation.  It  is  the 
only  fair  course  of  procedure.  We  pursue  the 
same  plan  here ;  and  lay  before  the  reader  the 
revolting  statements  of  May,  Temple,  Whitelock, 
Leland,  Carte,  Hume,  and  Mrs.  Macauley : 

"  People  of  all  conditions  and  qualities,  of  every  age  and  sex, 
daily  presented  themselves,  spoiled  and  stripped,  with  no  co- 
verings but  rags  or  twisted  straw  to  hide  their  privities  :  some 
wounded  almost  to  death ;  others  frozen  with  colds  some  tired 
with  travel,  and  so  surbated  that  they  came  into  the  city  creep- 
ing on  their  knees  //.'/ 


TALES   TO    HARROW   UP  THE   SOUL.          387 

i  , 

"  They  appeared  like  walking  ghosts  in  every  street ;  and  all 
the  barns,  stables,  and  outhouses  were  filled  with  them,  where 
they  soon  died  in  so  great  numbers,  that  all  the  churchyard1! 
of  Dublin  could  not  contain  them  /  /  ,'"421 

"  Some  had  their  bellies  ript  up,  and  so  left  with  their  guts 
running  about  their  heels.  But  this  horrid  kind  of  cruelty  was 
principally  reserved  by  these  inhuman  monsters  for  women, 
whose  sex  they  neither  pitied  nor  spared,  hanging  up  several 
women,  many  of  them  great  with  child,  whose  bellies  they 
ript  up  as  they  hung,  and  so  let  the  little  infants  fall  out ;  a 
course  they  ordinarily  took  with  such  as  they  found  in  that  sad 
condition.  And  sometimes  they  gave  their  children  to  swine. 
Some  the  dogs  eat:  and  some,  taken  alive  out  of  their  mother's 
bellies,  they  cast  into  ditches.  And  for  sucking  children,  and 
others  of  a  riper  age,  some  had  their  brains  knocked  out;  others 
were  trampled  under  foot  to  death.  Some  they  cut  in  gobbets 
and  pieces  ;  others  they  ripped  up  alive.  Some  were  found  in 
thejields,  sucking  the  breasts  of  their  murdered  mothers.  Others 
lay  stifled  in  vaults  and  cellars  ;  others  starved  in  caves,  crying 
out  to  their  mothers  rather  to  send  them  out  to  be  killed  by 
the  rebels,  than  to  suffer  them  to  starve  there."422 

"  They  drowned  many  hundreds,  men,  women,  and  inno- 
cent children,  in  the  rivers.  Some  they  sent  to  sea  in  a  rotten 
vessel,  without  any  sails  or  rudder,  to  be  cast  away  :  and  great 
numbers  of  the  English,  after  they  had  done  all  drudgeries 
for  the  rebels  in  hopes  of  mercy,  had  all  their  throats  cut 
by  them :  and  with  some  of  them  the  execrable  villains  and 
monsters  would  make  themselves  pastime  and  sport,  before  their 
death,  trying  who  could  hack  deepest  into  the  Englishmen's 
flesh  :  and  so  with  the  highest  torture  and  cruelty  mangled 
them  to  death."423 

"  Sometimes  they  enclosed  them  in  some  house  or  castle, 
which  they  set  on  fire,  with  a  brutal  indifference  to  their  cries, 
and  a  hellish  triumph  over  their  expiring  agonies.  Sometimes 
the  captive  English  were  plunged  into  the  first  river,  to  which 
they  had  been  driven  by  their  tormentors.  One  hundred  and 
ninety  were,  at  once,  precipitated  from  the  bridge  of  Portne- 
down.  Irish  ecclesiastics  were  seen  encouraging  the  carnage. 

421  May,  86.'          422  Temple,  89.  «*  Whitelock,  49. 


388  VtNDICUE    HIBERNICJE. 

TJie  women  forgot  the  tenderness  of  their  sex,  pursued  the  Eng- 
lish with  execrations,  and  imbrued  their  hands  in  blood.  Even 
children,  in  their  feeble  malice,  lifted  the  dagger  against  the 
helpless  prisoners  !  //"424 

"  They  gave  a  loose  to  the  mortal  hatred  they  bore  the  Eng- 
lish, and  rivers  of  blood  were  inhumanly  shed.  The  island, 
formerly  renowned  for  its  piety,  was  now  become  a  scene  of 
massacres,  which  it  would  be  shocking  to  humanity  to  repeat. 
Every  thing -that  the  ferocity  of  their  minds  and  the  brutality 
of  their  nature  could  suggest,  was  put  in  practice  by  the  com- 
mon soldiers"4*5 

"  An  universal  massacre  commenced  of  the  English,  now 
defenceless,  and  passively  resigned  to  their  inhuman  foes  !  !  ! 
No  age,  no  sex,  no  condition  was  spared.  The  wife,  weeping 
for  her  butchered  husband,  and  embracing  her  helpless  chil- 
dren, was  pierced  with  them,  and  perished  by  the  same  stroke. 
The  old,  the  young,  the  vigorous,  the  infirm,  underwent  a  like 
fate,  and  were  confounded  in  one  common  ruin.  In  vain  did 
flight  save  from  the  first  assault.  Destruction  was  every  where 
let  loose,  and  met  the  hunted  victims  at  every  turn."436 

"Slaughtering  the  English  was  represented  by  the  priests  as 
the  most  meritorious  of  religious  acts  !  !  They  exhorted  the  peo- 
ple with  tears  in  their  eyes  to  rid  the  world  of  these  declared 
enemies  to  the  Catholic  faith  and  piety.  Many  of  the  rebels 
would  say,  after  bragging  of  the  number  of  barbarous  murders 
they  had  committed,  that  they  knew  if  they  should  die,  their 
souls  would  go  immediately  to  heaven."427 

"  Some  thousands  of  English  were  burned  in  their  houses ; 
others  were  stripped  naked,  and,  in  hundreds  in  a  drove,  prick- 
ed forward  with  swords  and  spikes  to  river  sides,  and  from 
thence  pushed  headlong  into  the  stream.  Some  were  mana- 
cled and  thrown  into  dungeons,  and  there  left  to  perish  at  lei- 
sure. Others  were  mangled,  and  left  to  languish  in  the  high- 
ways. Some  were  happy  enough  to  suffer  the  milder  death  of 
hanging.  Other  more  unfortunate  wretches  were  buried  alive. 
This  was  the  fate  of  a  poor  little  infant,  who,  whilst  he  was 
putting  in  the  grave,  cried  out  to  his  dead  parent,  '  Mammy, 

434  Leland,  III.  147.  «*  Carte,  I.  177. 

426  Hume,  III.  542.  ™  Macauley,  III.  71. 


TALES  TO  HARROW  UP  THE  SOUL.    389 

save  me  !'  yet  could  not  his  innocent  cry  pierce  the  heart  of  the 
hardened  wretch  from  whom  he  received  his  fate.  Some  were 
mangled  and  hung  upon  tenter  hooks  !  !  Some  with  ropes  round 
their  necks,  were  dragged  through  woods,  bogs,  and  ditches, 
till  they  died.  Some  "were  hanged  up  by  the  arms,  and  then  cut 
and  slashed,  to  see  how  many  wounds  an  Englishman  could 
endure.  Some  were  ripped  up,  and  their  entrails  left  hanging 
about  their  heels.  These  kinds  of  cruelties  were  exercised  on 
children  of  all  ages,  and  many  women  with  child  suffered  the 
same  fate.  Children  were  forced  to  carry  their  sick  and  aged 
parents  to  the  place  of  slaughter  !!  There  were  of  those  bar- 
barians some  so  ingenious  in  their  cruelty  as  to  tempt  their 
prisoners  with  the  hopes  of  preserving  their  lives,  to  imbrue 
their  hands  in  the  blood  of  their  relations.  Clr  dren  were  in 
this  manner  impelled  to  be  the  executioners  -  their  parents, 
•wives  of  their  husbands,  mothers  of  their  chi.i>'re,i!  I  and  then, 
when  they  were  thus  rendered  accomplice*  'It,  they  were 

deprived  of  that  life  they  endeavoured  to  .-.iase  at  so  hor- 
rid a  price.  Childremvere  boiled  to  deatl  ,?  cauldrons.  Some 
•wretches  rvere  flayed  alive.  Others  were  stoned  to  death.  Others 
had  their  eyes  plucked  out ;  their  ears,  no,:e,  cheeks,  and  hands 
cut  off';  and  thus  rendered  spectacles  to  satiate  the  malice  of 
their  enemies.  •  Some  were  buried  up  to  the  chin,  and  there 
left  to  perish  by  degrees.  One  Protestant  minister  was  put 
into  a  cask,  lined  with  iron  spikes,  and  then  rolled  up  and  down 
till  he  was  dead!  !  !  Parents  were  roasted  to  death  before  their 
children,  and  children  before  their  parents  !  !  ,'"428 

To  establish  the  falsehood  of  these  hideous 
portraits  of  cruelty,  a  few  lines  might  suffice. 
Those  lines  would  carry  conviction.  It  would 
be  enough  to  state  the  simple  fact,  that  the  ori- 
ginals were  drawn  by  the  miserable  and  abandon- 
ed falsifiers,  who  have  so  long  deluded  the  world 
with  a  belief  that  there  were  100,000  persons 
massacred  in  one  week,  200,000  in  a  month, 

428  Macauley,  III.  71,  72. 


390  VINDICLE  HIBERNIC-K. 

and  300,000  in  two  years ;  (whereas  Sir  William 
Petty,  as  we  have  stated,  makes  the  whole  num- 
ber that  fell  in  eleven  years,  by  war,  plague, 
famine,  and  massacre,  112,000,  which  we  have 
proved  extravagantly  over-rated ;  and  Warner, 
who  had  no  partiality  for  the  Roman  Catholics, 
and  who  took  more  pains  to  investigate  the  sub- 
ject than  any  other  writer,  either  of  the  seven- 
teenth or  eighteenth  century,  reduces  the  number 
killed  out  of  war  to  4,028  ;  with  which  Carte's 
account  appears  to  correspond  ;) — who  have  re- 
corded, that  a  general  insurrection  and  massacre 
took  place  throughout  the  kingdom,  on  the  23d 
of  October,  1641,  whereas  three-fourths  of  it 
were,  for  entire  weeks  afterwards,  in  a  state 
of  perfect  tranquillity ; — who  have  also  recor.d- 
ed  the  falsehood,  that  Ireland  enjoyed  a  sort 
of  millenium  for  forty  years  previous  to  the 
insurrection,  whereas  she  suffered,  during  that 
period,  every  species  of  the  most  revolting  tyran- 
ny ;  in  a  word,  whom  we  have,  in  every  page  of 
our  work,  convicted  of  a  total  disregard  of  truth. 
All  these  stories  were  dictated  by  the  same  spirit 
of  imposture ;  penned  by  the  same  writers ;  rest, 
of  course,  on  the  same  authority ;  and  the  false- 
hood of  those  we  have  discussed  being  unanswer- 
ably proved,  the  residue  must  share  the  same 
sentence  of  condemnation. 

This,  we  trust,  would  be  sufficient.  Those 
convicted  of  fraud  and  falsehood,  in  so  many 
points,  where,  as  we  have  already  stated,  detec- 


TEMPLE'S  CONFESSION  or  GUILT.       391 

tion  trod  so  closely  on  their  heels,  are  utterly 
undeserving  of  credit,  in  any  case;  but  more 
particularly  in  those  wherein  the  difficulty  of  de- 
tection invites  the  fraudulent  to  falsehood  and 
forgery. 

But  of  this  plea  we  scorn  to  avail  ourselves. 
We  shall  enter  into  a  full  examination  of  the 
evidence  on  which  these  legends  rest ;  and  feel 
confident  that  it  will  excite  astonishment,  how, 
even  in  times  of  the  grossest  delusion,  they  could 
have  ever  gained  the  slightest  credence. 

Temple,  of  all  the  writers  whom  we  have 
quoted,  is  the  only  original  author.  His  book  is 
one  unvaried  tissue  of  fables,  of  which  he  was 
himself  so  much  and  so  justly  ashamed,  that  he 
endeavoured  to  suppress  it ;  and  actually  refused 
permission  to  the  booksellers  of  London  to  print 
a  second  edition.*  But  it  was  in  vain :  it  too  much 

*  Extract  of  a  Letter  from  the  Earl  of  Essex,  lord-lieutenant 
of  Ireland,  to  Mr.  Secretary  Coventry. 

"  Dublin  Castle,  Jan.  6,  1674-5. 

"  I  am  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  yours  of  the  22d  of 
December,  wherein  you  mention  a  book  that  was  newly  pub- 
lished, concerning  the  cruelties  committed  in  Ireland,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  late  war.  Upon  further  inquiry,  I  find  Sir 
J.  Temple,  master  of  the  rolls  here,  author  of  that  book,  was 
this  last  year  sent  to  by  several  stationers  of  London,  to  have 
his  consent  to  the  printing  thereof.  But  he  assures  me  that  he 
utterly  denied  it ;  and  whoever  printed  it,  did  it  without  his 
knowledge.  Thus  much  I  thought  fit  to  add  to  what  I  formerly 
said  upon  this  occasion,  that  I  might  do  this  gentleman  right, 
in  case  it  was  suspected  he  had  any  share  in  publishing  this 
nerv  edition."*29 

429  Essex,  2. 


392  VINDICIJE    HIBERNIOK. 

flattered  the  existing  prejudices, — too  much  fa- 
voured the  views  of  those  who  unjustly  possessed 
the  estates  of  which  the  Irish  were  plundered,  to 
hope  that  it  would  be  allowed  to  sink  into  ob- 
livion. 

The  remaining  writers  are  mere  copyists ;  and 
not  only  derive  their  facts,  with  occasional  am- 
plifications, from  Temple,  but  borrow  his  very 
language.  We  shall  notice  four  of  them ; — Bor- 
lase,  Carte,  Macauley,  and  Hume. 

Borlase's  history  was  published  in  1688  ;  and 
is  a  most  wretched  and  despicable  compilation. 
In  one  point,  however,  he  has  shown  a  consider- 
able degree  of  art,  in  avoiding  an  impolitic  step, 
which  Temple  took,  and  which  utterly  destroyed 
the  credibility  of  his  history.  The  latter,  to  give 
support  to  his  fabulous  narrative,  annexes  the 
depositions  on  which  it  is  grounded  ;  and  which 
bear  the  most  indisputable  marks  of  fraud  and 
perjury,  as  has  been  proved  in  Chapter  II.  and 
shall  be  more  fully  displayed  in  the  present  one, 
whereby  it  will  appear,  that  nothing  but  folly 
and  wickedness  could  have  devised,  nothing  but 
the  grossest  delusion  have  credited  them.  Bor- 
lase  has  stated  the  number  of  pretended  murders 
in  gross,  but  wholly  omitted  the  depositions,  and 
given  merely  the  names  of  the  witnesses,  whereby 
his  readers  have  no  means  of  ascertaining  the 
rottenness  of  the  foundation  on  which  they  rest. 

Carte's  account  affords  a  most  striking  display 
of  the  infatuation  that  prevails  on  this  topic.  The 


ASTONISHING   INCONSISTENCY.  393 

4 

reader,  in  page  371,  will  find  that  he  states,  that 
the  English  were  principally  settled  in  Leinster 
and  Munster ;  that  there  were  few  murders  com- 
mitted in  those  provinces;  that  the  insurgents 
spared  the  Scotch,  who  composed  the  great  mass 
of  the  Protestant  population  of  Ulster ;  that  there 
were  not  in  that  province  more  than  20,000  Eng- 
lish ;  that  of  this  number,  "  several  thousands" 
escaped  to  Dublin ;  that  "6,000  were  saved  in 
Fermanagh;'*  that  "others,"  not  improbably 
thousands,  found  an  asylum  in  three  fortified 
towns :  and  yet 

This  same  historian,  in  the  -very  same  page, 
and  at  the  distance  of  a  few  lines, 

Pathetically  and  feelingly  informs  his  readers, 
that 

RIVERS  OF  BLOOD  WERE  SHED  !  ! 

And 

MASSACRES    PERPETRATED,   WHICH   IT   WOULD   BE 
SHOCKING  TO  HUMANITY  TO  REPEAT  !  ! 

While  we  are  stating  these  particulars,  we  feel 
mixed  sensations  of  astonishment  and  indigna- 
tion, which  the  reader  may  conceive,  but  which 
language  cannot  express.  We  are  lost  in  the  mass 
of  reflections  excited  by  this  stupendous  delirium 
of  the  human  mind.  It  affords  another  instance 
of  the  gross  and  glaring  contradictions  so  con- 
stantly found  between  the  different  parts  of  the 
same  history  of  Irish  affairs.  It  is  an  extraordi- 
nary fatality,  from  which  even  the  very  few  whose 
intentions  appear  correct  have  not  escaped.  We 

50 


394  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

have  frequently  had  occasion  to  call  the  reader's 
attention  to  it ;  and  are  persuaded,  there  is  not 
elsewhere  any  parallel  to  be  found.  We  have 
met  with  various  cases,  in  which,  after  the  his- 
torian has  given  a  series  of  strong,  bold,  deci- 
sive facts,  calculated  to  excite  admiration  of  the 
endowments,  sympathy  for  the  sufferings,  and 
eager  wishes  for  the  success,  of  that  oppressed, 
and,  we  had  almost  said,  heaven-abandoned  na- 
tion, he  is  led  to  draw  inferences  not  merely 
unwarranted  by  his  facts,  but  in  direct  hostility 
with  them.  Of  this  wonderful  contradiction  be- 
tween fact  and  induction,  there  are  probably  in 
Warner  fifty,  and  in  Leland  a  hundred  instances : 
but  there  is  none  more  remarkable  than  this  of 
Carte.  It  would  be  like  a  search  after  the  phi- 
losopher's stone ;  the  genial  climate  and  verdure 
of  Italy  in  Iceland :  free  government  in  Turkey ; 
or  ease  and  opulence  in  the  wretched  cabins  of 
the  Irish  peasantry ;  to  go  in  quest  of  those 
"  rivers  of  blood"  or  those  "  massacres"  so 
"  shocking  to  humanity,"  out  of  the  remnant  of 
his  20,000  English,  after  the  "  several  thousands" 
whom  he  rescued  from  the  skein  or  the  stiletto 
of  the  Irish  assassins. 

Mrs.  Macauley  has  outdone  the  other  painters 
of  those  imaginary  scenes.  More  than  half  of 
her  detail  appears  to  be  the  production  of  her 
own  invention  ;  as  there  is  nothing  in  Temple  or 
Rushworth,  or  any  other  writer  we  have  seen,  to 
warrant  it ;  particularly  the  story  of  the  clergy- 


HUME    RESTING    ON    TEMPLE.  395 

man  put  into  the  cask  with  iron  spikes,  and  rolled 
to  death ;  and  the  children  roasted  to  death  be- 
fore their  parents,  and  the  parents  before  their 
children. 

Of  all  the  writers  on  this  subject,  there  is  none 
deserving  of  more  unqualified  censure  than 
Hume.  He  was  under  the  influence  of  none  of 
the  dire  passions  that  actuated  some  of  the  others. 
With  a  powerful  mind  and  keen  penetration,  it 
was  his  duty  to  have  examined  carefully  the 
credibility  of  his  authorities ;  and  it  required  a 
very  cursory  examination,  indeed,  of  Temple's 
history,  to  be  satisfied  that  to  quote  it  was  an 
ineffable  disgrace.  Yet,  astonishing  to  tell,  out 
of  thirty-four  references,  in  his  account  of  the 
pretended  massacre  of  1641,  there  are  no  less 
than  twenty-seven  to  Temple,  only  five  to  Rush- 
worth,  and  one  each  to  Nalson  and  Whitelock. 
How  utterly  unworthy  this  procedure  was  of  the 
talents  and  reputation  of  Hume ;  how  indelible  a 
stain  it  attaches  to  his  memory ;  and  how  far, 
as  respects  this  individual  case,  he  is  reduced  to 
a  level  with  the  common  race  of  historians,  may 
be  readily  conceived,  from  the  extracts  already 
given  from  Temple's  history,*  and  from  those 
which  follow  in  the  present  chapter.  A  large 
portion  of  the  most  horrible  passages,  for  which 
he  quotes  Temple's  history,  are  grounded,  in  that 
wretched  romance,  on  hear-say  testimony ;  which 

*  Supra,  38,  41,  42. 


396  VINDICLE    HIBERNIC.K. 

is  distinctly  stated  in  the  depositions,  as  will  ap- 
pear in  the  course  of  the  present  chapter,  and 
which  therefore  could  not  have  been  unknown 
to  Hume,  and  ought  to  have  forbidden  him  to 
place  the  least  dependence  on  their  authority. 

But  his  offence  is  not  confined  to  the  original 
use  of  those  "  tales  of  terror."  No  :  a  much 
higher  and  more  inexpiable  one  remains  behind. 

Dr.  John  Curry  published  a  work  of  most 
transcendent  merit,  of  which  the  title  is,  "  Histo- 
rical Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  of  Ireland,"  in 
which  he  fully  displayed  the  falsehood,  and  com- 
pletely overthrew  the  narrative,  of  Temple.  The 
peculiar  characteristic  of  this  work  is,  that  every 
important  fact  it  contains  is  supported  by  the 
most  indisputable  authority,  not  merely  in  the 
form  of  reference,  but  by  exact  quotation.  It 
may  be  safely  asserted,  that  a  more  valuable  his- 
torical work  was  never  published.*  The  author, 
in  1764,  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  David  Hume,  then 
at  Paris,  with  a  request  that  he  would  give  it  a 
candid  consideration,  and  correct  the  errors  that 
he  had  committed,  by  his  dependence  on  such  a 
deceptious  guide  as  Temple.  To  this  letter  he 

*  This  review  is  earnestly  recommended  to  the  attention  of 
the  learned  world.  It  is  a  perfect  model  of  the  manner  in 
which  history,  on  all  disputed  points,  ought  to  be  written.  So 
luminous  is  Curry's  style,  so  cogent  his  reasoning,  and  so  in- 
disputable his  authorities,  that  the  most  inveterate  prejudices 
must  give  way,  on  a  candid  perusal  of  the  work. 


GROSS    IMPOSTURE.  397 

sent  an  "  evasive  answer"*  in  which  he  declined 
committing  himself  by  any  promise  ;  and  never, 
in  any  subsequent  edition,  corrected  a  single 
error  in  this  part  of  his  work.  On  this  conduct, 
there  can,  among  upright  men,  be  but  one  sen- 
tence pronounced ;  and  that  is,  a  most  unqualified 
sentence  of  reprobation. 

To  travel  through  the  loathsome  details  of  the 
evidence  by  which  the  terrific  descriptions  of  the 
massacre  (as  it  is  pompously  styled)  are  support- 
ed, is  as  disgusting  to  the  moral  sense,  as  it  would 
be  to  the  olfactory  nerve  to  travel  through  filthy 
shambles,  where  neglect,  and  consequent  putre- 
faction, had  trebled  the  natural  noisomeness  of 
the  place.  These  details  exhibit  human  nature 
in  its  most  hideous  forms.  Nothing  meets  the 
mind's  eye,  but  fraud,  forgery,  and  perjury  ;  and, 
to  crown  the  whole,  the  immolation,  under  the 
mockery  of  justice,  of  those  wretched  victims 

*  "  I  am  here  at  such  a  distance  from  my  authorities,  that  I 
cannot  produce  all  the  arguments  which  determined  me  to 
give  the  account  you  complain  of,  with  regard  to  the  Irish 
massacre.  I  only  remember  I  sought  truth,  and  thought  I 
found  it.  The  insurrection  might  be  excused,  as  having  liber- 
ty for  its  object.  The  violence  also  of  the  Puritanical  Parlia- 
ment, struck  a  just  terror  into  all  the  Catholics.  But  the  me- 
thod of  conducting  the  rebellion,  if  we  must  call  it  by  that 
name,  was  certainly  such,  and  you  seem  to  own  it,  as  deserv- 
ed the  highest  blame,  and  was  one  of  the  most  violent  efforts 
of  barbarism  and  bigotry  unitedV'430  D.  H. 

430  Curry,  1.215. 


398  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

who  had  escaped  the  insatiate  rage  of  Coote, 
Inchiquin,  Orrery,  Ireton,  Cromwell,  and  their 
worthy  followers. 

Those  who  have  attended  courts  of  justice 
cannot  have  failed  to  observe  the  frightful  fre- 
quency of  perjury,  so  gross  and  so  palpable,  as 
not  to  escape  the  detection  of  the  most  superfi- 
cial observer,  often  in  cases  of  slight  importance, 
and  holding  out,  of  course,  little  temptation  to 
the  perpetration  of  this  dangerous  crime.  When, 
therefore,  nearly  the  whole  fee  simple  of  a  fertile 
island  was  at  stake ;  when  rapine  made  hasty 
strides  in  the  confiscation  of  millions  of  acres ; 
when  an  estate  of  one,  two,  three,  or  four  hun- 
dred thousand  acres  depended,  as  was  often  the 
lamentable  case,  on  the  oath  of  a  single  perjured 
witness ;  when  no  witness  was  too  base,  too  prof- 
ligate, too  infamous, — no  testimony  too  extrava- 
gant, too  incredible,  too  impossible,  to  be  admit- 
ted, to  prove  the  guilt,  confiscate  the  property, 
or  sacrifice  the  life,  of  an  Irishman ;  had  the 
tales  embraced  in  those  depositions  been  all  plau- 
sible and  consistent ;  had  each  corroborated  the 
others ;  had  there  not  been  the  slightest  contra- 
diction between  them,  still  every  sound  and  un- 
prejudiced mind  would  receive  the  accusations 
with  large  drawbacks  and  allowances  ;  knowing 
well,  that  strong  temptations  to  fraud  and  villany 
will  readily  overcome  the  scruples  of  the  profli- 
gate and  abandoned  part  of  mankind;  that  greater 


GROSS    IMPOSTURE.  399 

temptations  to  fraud,  forgery,  and  perjury,  never 
existed ;  that  they  were  never  more  kindly  re- 
ceived or  encouraged  ;  and  also  knowing,  that, 
during  periods  of  civil  war,  when  all  the  vile 
passions  of  human  nature  are  let  loose  from  their 
usual  restraints, — when  party  rage,  national  anti- 
pathies, and  religious  persecution,  all  combine 
their  deleterious  influence,  to  demoralize  and 
brutalize  mankind,  every  species  of  profligacy 
and  turpitude  is  nursed  as  in  a  hotbed. 

But  how  revolting  is  the  fact,  that  a  large 
portion  of  this  evidence,  as  we  have  mentioned, 
and  wish  indelibly  impressed  on  the  reader's 
mind,  is  sworn  to  on  hear-say ;  that  it  is  gene- 
rally deficient  of  probability,  and  in  many  cases 
even  of  possibility ;  that  it  carries  on  its  face  the 
most  irrefragable  proofs  of  its  utter  falsehood, 
of  the  perjury  of  the  witnesses,  and  of  the  wick- 
edness of  the  judges  and  others  who  took  the 
depositions  !  Many  of  those  depositions,  as  may 
be  seen  in  Chapter  II.  relate  to  circumstances 
utterly  impossible ;  as  the  shrieking  of  ghosts, 
standing  upright  in  rivers,  crying  for  revenge; 
naked  bodies,  struck  at  with  drawn  swords,  prov- 
ing invulnerable ;  grease  adhering  to  the  knives 
of  murderers,  in  sufficient  quantities  to  make 
candles ;  persons  cut  and  hacked,  and  their  bow- 
els torn  out,  without  shedding  their  blood,  §c.  £$c. 

We  have  already  stated,  that  all  the  depositions 
taken,  at  various  times  and  places,  to  establish 
the  guilt  of  the  Irish,  have  been  collected  toge- 


400  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

ther,  and  bound  up  in  thirty-two  volumes,  which 
are  paged,  indexed,  and  preserved  with  care ; 
and  that  from  these  Sir  John  Temple  made  a 
selection  of  those  best  calculated  to  answer  his 
purpose.  We  may  fairly  presume,  that,  in  form- 
ing his  anthologia,  he  culled  the  sweetest  flowers, 
and  that  those  that  remain  are  inferior  to  those 
he  selected.  Of  the  latter,  we  shall  give  such 
specimens,  as  cannot  fail  to  excite  the  astonish- 
ment and  horror  of  every  man  whose  conscience 
is  not  seared  with  the  hot  iron  of  inextinguishable 
hatred  to  Ireland  and  Irishmen. 

It  may  be  a  matter  of  surprise,  why  the  tales 
were  not  dressed  in  better  form ; — why,  since 
plausible  stories  cost  the  inventors  as  little  ta- 
lents or  trouble  as  incredible  ones,  they  did  not 
frame  consistent  narratives,  which  would  stand 
the  test  of  examination,  and  not  carry  their  own 
condemnation  with  them.  The  answer  is  ob- 
vious. The  taste  of  the  purchasers  regulates  the 
manufacture  of  every  article  ;  and  the  object  be- 
ing to  bear  down  a  nation  hated  for  the  injustice 
it  had  suffered,  envied  for  the  property  it  pos- 
sessed, and  devoted  to  destruction  by  religious 
bigotry  and  the  spirit  of  rapine  and  plunder,  the 
more  terrible  the  tales,  the  more  acceptable.  The 
supernatural  power  of  witches,  and  the  apparition 
of  ghosts,  were  as  firmly  believed,  in  those  days 
of  ignorance,  as  the  existence  and  justice  of  the 
solemn  league  and  covenant.  Apparitions  were 
therefore  caUed  in,  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 


WONDERFUL   TRAVELLING.  40  i 

machinery,  to  prop  the  evidence  of  the  horrify- 
ing massacre,  and  wonderfully  heightened  its  ef- 
fect. Millions  of  acres  of  land,  and  hundreds  of 
lives,  were  sacrificed,  to  appease  the  manes  of 
those,  whose  screaming,  shrieking  ghosts  were, 
for  months  together,  invoking  vengeance  on  their 
murderers,  at  Portnedown  bridge. 

The  depositions  quoted  by  Temple,  and  which 
form  the  basis  of  his  history,  may  be  fairly  divided 
into  four  classes : 

I.  Those  which  rest  wholly  on  hearsay ; 

II.  Those  that  assert  things  contrary  to  the 
order  of  nature ;  as  the  appearance  of  ghosts ; 

III.  Those  which  are  so  manifestly  improbable, 
as  to  preclude  the  assent  of  rational  beings ; 

IV.  Those  which  are  drawn  up  without  any 
internal  evidence  of  their  falsehood. 

That  the  two  first  classes  are  to  be  rejected, 
without  a  moment's  hesitation,  no  man  will  dare 
deny.  That  they  ever  were  admitted,  and  that 
such  men  as  Carte,  Warner,  Leland,  and  Hume, 
should  have  made  them  the  basis  on  which  they 
erected  their  legendary  tales,  will  be  matter  of 
eternal  astonishment. 

The  third  class  merits  the  same  fate.  We  will 
give  two  instances,  in  illustration.  May  and  Tem- 
ple both  state,  that  many  of  the  English  were  so 
"  surbated"  by  the  fatigues  of  their  flight  from 
the  murderous  rebels,  that  they  crawled  into 
Dublin  on  their  knees !  To  a  person  unacquaint- 
ed with  the  geography  of  Ireland,  it  might  appear 

51 


402  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

that  these  miserable  fugitives,  who  were  so  "  sur- 
bated,"* had  travelled  two  or  three  thousand  miles 
over  sands  or  rocks,  or  both ;  and  worn  out  not 
only  their  shoes  and  stockings,  but  their  feet. 
He  could  not  conceive  that  the  most  distant  point 
of  the  north,  from  Dublin,  was  not  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  ;  that  the  average  distance  of  the  chief 
seats  of  the  insurrection  was  only  about  ninety ; 
and  the  roads  neither  sandy  nor  stony.  But  when 
he  is  duly  enlightened  on  these  very  abstruse 
points,  and  has  reflected  that  a  man  not  goaded 
on  by  apprehension  of  skeins  or  daggers,  could 
with  ease  walk  one  hundred  miles  in  five  or  six 
days ;  that  with  such  powerful  stimuli,  he  would 
probably  travel  them  in  three  or  four ;  that  it  is 
not  usual,  in  three  or  four,  or  even  in  five  or  six 
days'  travelling,  to  wear  out  either  shoes  or 
stockings ;  that  even  if  the  shoes  or  stockings 
were  worn  out,  it  requires  a  far  greater  extent  of 
travelling  to  wear  out  the  feet ;  and  that  there  is 
no  instance  on  record,  of  a  man  preferring  to 
travel  on  his  knees  instead  of  his  feet,  especially 
when  fleeing  from  assassins  :  when  he  has  duly 
weighed  these  considerations,  and  various  others 
that  must  arise  in  his  mind,  he  will  conclude, 
that  no  man  would  have  ever  devised  such  a 

*  "  Some,  over-wearied  with  long  travel,  and  so  surbated as 
they  came  creeping  on  their  knees  I"431 

"  Some,  tired  with  travel,  and  so  surbated  that  they  came 
into  the  city  creeping  on  their  knees  /"432 

431  Temple,  55.  432  May,  86. 


MIRACULOUS    SELF-DENIAL.  403 

wretched  story,  but  an  abandoned  impostor ;  and 
that  none  would  give  credit  to  it,  but  those  whose 
folly  was  exactly  commensurate  with  the  fraud 
of  the  narrator. 

A  large  portion  of  the  falsehoods  that  so  uni- 
versally abound  in  Irish  history,  display,  as  we 
have  had  frequent  occasion  to  remark,  an  equal 
degree  of  stupidity  and  wickedness,  This  is  a 
strong  case  in  point.  The  idea  of  people  flying 
from  the  skeins  and  daggers  of  assassins,  and  so 
"  surbated"  by  a  journey  of  fifty  or  a  hundred 
miles,  as  to  be  obliged  to  creep  or  crawl  on  their 
knees,  is  so  absurd,  so  ridiculous,  so  farcical,  so 
improbable,  as  to  excite  contempt ;  and  would 
itself,  if  it  stood  single,  be  almost  sufficient  to 
destroy  the  credit  of  any  historian,  who  could 
seriously  attempt  to  impose  such  a  romance  on 
the  world. 

We  shall  be  pardoned  for  glancing  at  another 
case  of  the  testimony  of  this  class.  Temple  in- 
forms us,  that  some  of  those  "  surbated"  fugitives, 
who  were  "  almost  naked"  refused  to  cover  them- 
selves with  clothes  which  were  offerepl  them ;  that 
they  "would  not  stir  to  fetch  themselves  food, 
though  they  knew  where  it  stood  ready  for  them;" 
and  that  "  they  lay  in  their  own  dung."*  Com- 

*  "  Those  of  better  quality,  who  could  not  frame  themselves 
to  be  common  beggars,  crept  into  private  places  :  and  some  of 
them,  that  had  not  private  friends  to  relieve  them,  even  wasted 
silently  away,  and  so  died  without  noise.  I  have  known  some 
of  them  that  lay  almost  naked,  and  having  clothes  sent,  laid 


404  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

ment  on  such  legends  would  be  insulting  to  the 
understanding  of  the  reader.  We  presume  that 
every  account  of  this  description  is  nearly  on  a 
level  with  the  story  of  the  ghosts  that  were  perch- 
ed in  the  river,  screaming  for  revenge,  from 
Christmas  till  the  end  of  lent  ;*  and  is  entitled  to 
the  same  unqualified  rejection. 

The  fourth  class  alone  is  entitled  to  any  con- 
sideration :  and  even  that  stands  a  fair  chance  of 
being  involved  in  the  same  condemnation.  Per- 
jury was  the  order  of  the  day :  witnesses  were 
suborned  to  shed  innocent  blood  :f  and  where  we 

them  by,  refusing  to  put  them  on !  ! !  Others  that  -would  not 
stir  to  fetch  themselves  food,  though  they  knew  where  it  stood 
ready  for  them!! !  But  they  continued  to  lie  nastily  in 
their  filthy  rags,  and  even  THEIR  OWN  DUNG!  !  not  taking 
care  to  have  any  thing  clean,  handsome,  or  comfortable  about 
them  :  and  so  even  worn  out  with  the  misery  of  the  journey, 
and  cruel  usage,  having  their  spirits  spent,  their  bodies  wast- 
ed, and  their  senses  failing,  lay  here  pitifully  languishing ;  and 
soon  after  they  had  recovered  this  town,  very  many  of  them 
died,  leaving  their  bodies  as  monuments  of  the  most  inhuman 
cruelties  used  towards  them.  The  greatest  part  of  the  women 
and  children,  thus  barbarously  expelled  out  of  their  habitations, 
perished  in  the  city  of  Dublin :  and  so  great  numbers  of  them 
were  brought  to  their  graves,  as  all  the  church-yards  within 
the  -whole  town  were  of  too  narrow  a  compass  to  contain."*33 
f  The  reader  is  requested  to  turn  to  the  duke  of  Ormond's 
statement  of  the  application  to  the  Privy  Council  for  the  wages 
of  prostitution  ',\  that  is,  payment  for  money  expended  for 
hifing  those  witnesses  whose  '''•feet  were  swift  to  shed  innocent 
blood;'1''  and,  above  all,  to  the  horrible  fact  of  a  jury  finding  one 
thousand  bills  of  indictment  in  two  days.$ 

*  Supra,  42.  433  Temple,  55. 

\  Supra,  85.  §  Supra,  84. 


GREAT  CAPACITY  OF  WITNESSES.     405 

can  establish,  beyond  contradiction,  the  absolute 
and  unqualified  perjury  of  so  many  of  the  wit- 
nesses, who  swear  positively  to  impossibilities,  or 
to  tales  of  "  what  this  body  heard  another  body 
say"434  and,  above  all,  when  such  a  man  as  Sir 
William  Petty  boasted  that  he  "  had  witnesses  that 
would  swear  through  a  three-inch  board,"*  we  are 
warranted  in  rejecting  even  that  small  portion  of 
the  evidence  which  wears  a  plausible  appearance ; 
for  it  would  be  extraordinary,  if  none  of  the  per- 
jurers could  tell  a  consistent  story. 

Those  who  have  felt  an  interest  in  the  support 
of  fraud  and  imposture  ;  whose  blind  prejudices 
rendered  them  insensible  to  the  forgeries  and 
perjuries  on  which  Temple's  history  is  grounded; 
or,  to  give  their  conduct  a  more  favourable  con- 
struction, who  perhaps  had  never  examined  his 
book,  have  endeavoured  to  secure  it  a  reputation 
and  currency  of  which  it  is  utterly  unworthy.  The 
most  remarkable  instances  are  William,  bishop 
of  Derry,  about  a  century  since,  and  a  certain 
Francis  Maseres,  of  the  Inner  Temple,  of  recent 
date.  The  former  introduces  Temple,  in  a  strain 
of  encomium  suitable  for  a  Livy  or  a  Tacitus. 
" This  great  man"  says  he,  " carries  his  story 
no  further  than  the  landing  of  Sir  Simon  Har- 
court."435  We  shall  soon  hold  "  this  great  man" 

*  "  Sir  William  Petty  bragged,  that  he  had  got  witnesses 
who  would  have  sworn  through  a  three-inch  board  to  evict 
the  duke."436 

434  Warner,  146.        435  Derry,  55.         ««  Carte,  II.  393. 


406  VINDICLK  HIBERNIOfc. 

up  to  the  unqualified  scorn  of  every  liberal  mind, 
and  place  in  its  proper  light  the  fraud  or  the 
folly  of  the  lord  bishop  of  Derry. 

Maseres,  who  has  recently  republished  "  May's 
History  of  the  Long  Parliament,"  pronounces  the 
most  extravagant  encomiums  on  Temple,*  the 
"  authenticity"  of  whose  «  excellent  history  of  the 
Irish  rebellion,"  is,  he  says,  "  above  all  suspicion." 

We  would  fondly  hope,  for  the  sake  of  their 
own  reputation,  that  neither  the  bishop  of  Derry 
nor  Mr.  Maseres  had  read  Temple's  history,  but 
had  taken  its  character  on  trust ;  for  it  may  be 
safely  averred,  that  no  man  who  has  read  it,  or 
even  those  disgusting  specimens  which  are  here 
exhibited,  can  give  the  least  credit  to  it,  unless 
he  be  blind  and  deaf  to  the  most  common  rules 

*  "  Our  loss  on  this  occasion  may  be  in  some  degree  repair- 
ed, with  respect  to  the  state  of  Ireland  during  those  two  years, 
or  at  least  during  the  first  part  of  them,  by  having  recourse  to 
the  excellent  History  of  the  Irish  Rebellion  and  Massacre, 
in  October,  1641,  written  by  Sir  John  Temple,  who  was  mas- 
ter of  the  rolls  in  Ireland,  and  a  member  of  the  king's  Privy 
Council  in  Dublin,  at  the  very  time  of  its  breaking  out,  and 
took  a  zealous  and  active  part  in  the  measures  that  were 
immediately  employed  for  the  preservation  of  that  important 
city.  This  account  of  that  horrid  event  is  universally  allowed 
to  be  perfectly  true  and  authentick ! !  and  is  indeed  made  up, 
in  a  great  degree,  of  the  depositions  of  several  persons  who 
were  'eye-witnesses!  of  the  various  assaults,  murders,  and 
robberies  of  the  poor  Protestants,  by  their  perfidious  Popish 
neighbours,  with  whom  they  had  been  living  in  the  most 
friendly  and  unsuspecting  familiarity  for  almost  forty  years. 
Its  authenticity  is  therefore  above  all  suspicion  !!  /"437 

437  May,  xiii. 


WHOLESALE    CONFISCATION.  407 

of  evidence;  and  no  man  who  has  so  read  it,  will 
pretend  to  believe  it,  unless  he  means  to  delude 
and  deceive. 

These  strong  assertions  require  equally  strong 
support :  no  other  would  bear  us  out,  or  warrant 
the  use  of  them.  We  trust  we  shall  satisfy  the 
most  fastidious  reader,  that,  however  pointed  our 
reprobation  of  Temple's  history,  it  is  very  far 
from  over-strained.  It  will  be  an  eternal  subject 
of  astonishment,  how  it  has  happened,  that  a  lying 
legend,  which  carried  a  load  of  perjury  sufficient 
"  to  sink  a  seventy-four,"  was  ever  able  to  sup- 
port itself,  and  was  not,  with  its  wretched  author, 

"  Damned  to  everlasting"  infamy. 

No  reason  would  be  sufficient,  short  of  what 
we  have  already  stated ;  that  the  confiscation  of 
10,000,000  acres  of  the  soil  of  Ireland,  projected 
by  the  London  adventurers,  sanctioned  by  the 
Long  Parliament,*  and  in  a  great  measure  car- 
ried into  effect  by  Oliver  Cromwell,  depended  for 
its  justification  on  this  history,  which  interested 
so  many  thousands  in  the  support  of  it,  that,  had 
it  been  incomparably  more  fabidous  than  it  really 
is,  their  influence,  particularly  as  they  have,  ever 
since  its  first  appearance,  been  the  dominant  party 
in  Ireland,  would  have  rescued  it  from  the  noi- 
some pool  of  shame,  disgrace,  and  oblivion,  fnto 
which  it  would  otherwise  have  been  precipitated. 

*  Supra,  64,  65. 


408  VINDICLK    HIBERNICJE. 

I.  Hearsay  evidence. 

The  reader  will  find,  in  the  annexed  notes,* 
full  and  complete  corroboration  of  all  our  allega- 

*  "  The  examination  of  dame  Butler,  who,  being  duly 
sworn,  deposeth  that 

"  She  -was  credibly  informed  by  Dorothy  Renals,  who  had 
been  several  times  an  eye-witness  of  these  lamentable  specta- 
cles, that  she  had  seen  to  the  number  of  five  and  thirty  English 
going  to  execution ;  and  that  she  had  seen  them  when  they 
were  executed,  their  bodies  exposed  to  devouring  ravens,  and 
not  afforded  so  much  as  burial. 

"  And  this  deponent  saith,  That  Sir  Edward  Butler  did  cre- 
dibly inform  her,  that  James  Butler,  of  Finyhinch,  had  hanged 
and  put  to  death  all  the  English  that  were  at  Goran  and  Wells, 
and  all  thereabouts  !  I ! 

"  Jane  Jones,  servant  to  the  deponent,  did  see  the  English 
formerly  specified  going  to  their  execution ;  and,  as  she  con- 
ceived, they  were  about  the  number  of  thirty-five ;  and  was 
told  by  Elizabeth  Home,  that  there  were  forty  gone  to  execu- 
tion. Jurat.  Sept.  7,  1642.  ANNE  BuiLER."438 

"  Thomas  Fleetwood,  late  curate  of  Killbeggan,  in  the 
county  of  Westmeath,  deposeth,  That  he  hath  heard  from  the 
mouths  of  the  rebels  themselves  of  great  cruelties  acted  by  them. 
And,  for  one  instance,  that  they  stabbed  the  mother,  one  Jane 
Addis  by  name,  and  left  her  little  sucking  child,  not  a  quarter 
old,  by  the  corpse,  and  then  they  put  the  breast  of  its  dead 
mother  into  its  mouth,  and  bid  it '  suck,  English  bastard,'  and 
so  left  it  there  to  perish.  Jurat.  March  22,  1642."439 

"  Richard  Bourk,  bachelor  in  divinity,  of  the  county  of  Fer- 
managh, deposeth,  That  he  heard,  and  verily  believeth,  the 
burning  and  killing  of  one  hundred,  at  least,  in  the  castle  of 
Tullah,  and  that  the  same  was  done  after  fair  quarter  promis- 
ed. Jurat.  July  12, 1643."440 

438  Temple,  116, 11 7.         «»  Idem,  107.          ^  Idem,  84. 


HEARSAY  EVIDENCE.  409 

tions.   They  speak  their  own  condemnation,  and 
shed  confusion  and  disgrace  on  those  who  have 

"  William  Parkinson,  of  Castle-Cumber,  in  the  county  Kil- 
kenny, gent,  deposeth,  That  by  the  credible  report,  both  of 
English  and  some  Irish,  who  affirmed  they  were  eye-witnesses 
of  a  bloody  murder  committed  near  Kilfeal,  in  the  Queen's 
county,  upon  an  Englishman,  his  wife,  four  or  five  children, 
and  a  maid,  all  which  were  hanged,  by  the -command  of  Sir 
Morgan  Cavanagh  and  Robert  Harpool,  and  afterwards  put 
all  in  one  hole,  the  youngest  child  being  not  fully  dead,  put 
out  the  hand,  and  cried  Mammy,  Mammy,  when  without 
mercy  they  buried  him  alive.  Jurat.  February  11,  1642."441 

"  Owen  Frankland,  of  the  city  of  Dublin,  deposeth,  That 
Michael  Garray  told  this  deponent,  that  there  was  a  Scotch- 
man, who  being  driven  by  the  rebels  out  of  Newry,  and 
knocked  on  the  head  by  the  Irish,  recovered  himself,  and 
came  again  into  the  town  naked,  whereupon  the  rebels  carried 
him  and  his  wife  out  of  the  town,  cut  him  aH  to  pieces,  and 
with  a  skein  ripped  his  wife's  belly,  so  as  a  child  dropped  out 
of  her  womb.  Jurat.  July  23,  1642."44* 

"  Alexander  Creighton,  of  Glaslough,  in  the  county  of 
Monaghan,  gent,  deposeth,  That  he  heard  it  credibly  reported 
among  the  rebels  aforesaid,  at  Glaslough,  that  Hugh  Mac 
O'Dcgan,  a  priest,  had  done  a  most  meritorious  act,  in  draw- 
ing betwixt  forty  and  fifty  English  and  Scotch,  in  the  parish  of 
Gonally,  in  the  county  of  Fermanagh,  to  reconciliation  with 
the  church  of  Rome  ;  and,  after  giving  them  the  sacrament, 
demanded  of  them  whether  Christ's  body  was  really  in,  the 
sacrament  or  no  ?  and  they  said,  Yea.  And  that  he  demanded 
further,  Whether  they  held  the  pope  to  be  supreme  head  of 
the  church  ?  They  likewise  answered,  He  was.  And  that 
thereupon  he  presently  told  them,  They  were  in  good  faith, 
and  for  fear  they  should  fall  from  it,  and  turn  heretics,  he  and 
the  rest  that  were  with  him  cut  all  their  throats.  Jurat. 
March  1,  1642."443 

441  Temple,  87.  <42  Idem,  89.  *3  Idem,  10O. 

52 


410  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE.-* 

employed  them.     There  does  not  live  a  man, 
who  has  the  slightest  regard  to  his  reputation, 

"  Richard  Bourke,  bachelor  of  divinity,  deposeth,  that  he 
was  informed,  that  Mr.  Lodge,  archdeacon  of  Killalow,  being 
Juried  about  six  years  since,  and  divers  other  ministers'  bones 
were  digged  out  of  their  graves  as  patrons  of  heresy,  by  di- 
rection of  the  titular  bishop  of  Killalow  ;  and  Robert  Jones,  a 
minister,  was  not  admitted  Christian  burial,  by  direction  of 
some  Popish  priests.  Jurat.  July  12,  1643."444 

"  James,  of  Hacketstown,  in  the  county  of  Catherlogh,  de- 
poseth, That  an  Irish  gentleman  told  him  and  others,  that  he 
had  turned  an  English  woman  away,  who  was  his  servant,  and 
had  a  child,  and  that  before  the  poor  woman  and  child  were 
gone  half  a  mile,  divers  Irish  women  slew  them  with  stones. 
Jurat.  April  21, 1643."445 

"  John  Clerck,  of  Knockback,  gentleman,  deposeth,  That  he 
heard  credib'ly  from  Mr.  Lightbourne,  minister  of  the  Naas,  that 
the  rebels  shot  a  parish  clerk,  near  Kildare,  through  his  thighs, 
and  afterwards  digged  a  deep  hole  in  the  ground,  wherein  they 
set  him  upright  on  his  feet,  and  filled  up  the  hole  in  the  earth, 
leaving  out  only  his  head,  in  which  state  they  left  the  poor 
wounded  man,  till  he  pined,  languished,  and  so  died.  Jurat. 
October  24,  1643."446 

"  Katherine,  the  relict  of  William  Coke,  of  the  county  of 
Armagh,  deposeth,  That  many  of  her  neighbours,  who  had 
been  prisoners  among  the  rebels,  said  and  affirmed,  that  divers 
of  the  rebels  would  confess,  brag-  and  boast,  how  they  took  an 
English  Protestant,  one  Robert  Wilkinson,  at  Kilmore,  and 
held  his  feet  in  the  fire  until  they  burned  him  to  death;  and  the 
said  Robert  Wilkinson's  own  son  was  present,  and  a  prisoner, 
when  that  cruelty  was  exercised  on  his  father.  Jurat.  Febru- 
ary 24,  1643."447 

"  Dennis  Kelly,  of  the  county  of  Meath,  deposeth,  That 
Garret  Tallon,  of  Cruisetown,  in  the  said  county,  gentleman, 

444  Temple,  95.  44S  Idem,  93. 

446  Ibid.  417  Ibid. 


HEARSAY  EVIDENCE.  411 

that  will  dare  to  justify  or  palliate  the  use  of 
such  materials-of  fraud.  In  common  cases,  they 

^  is  commonly  reported,  hired  two  men  to  kill  Anne  Hage- 
ly,  wife  to  Edward  Tallon,  his  son,  a  Papist,  and  at  that  time 
absent  from  home ;  and  the  said  two  men  did,  in  a  most  bloody 
manner,  with  skeins,  kill  the  saicl  Anne  Hagely,  and  her  daugh- 
ter, and  her  daughter's  two  children,  because  they  would  not 
consent  to  go  to  mass ;  and  after,  they  would  not  permit  them 
to  be  buried  in  a  church  or  church-yard,  but  the  four  were 
buried  in  a  ditch.  Jurat.  August  23,  1643."448 

"  The  examination  of  Joseph  Wheeler,  of  Stancarty,  in  the 
county  of  Kilkenny,  Esqr. ;  Elizabeth,  the  relict  of  William 
Gilbert,  of  captain  Ridgway's  company  ',  Rebecca  Hill,  the 
relict  of  Thomas  Hill,  late  lieutenant  to  the  said  captain  Ridg- 
way ;  Thomas  Lewis,  late  of  Kilkenny,  gent. ;  and  Patrick 
Maxwell,  of  the  Graig,  in  the  same  county,  gent,  sworn  and 
examined,  depose  and  say, 

"  That  they  have  credibly  heard  and  believed,  that  Florence 
Fitz-Patrick  having  enticed  a  rich  merchant  of  Mountwrath 
to  his  the  said  Fitz-Patrick's  house,  to  bring  thither  his  goods, 
which  he  promised  should  be  safely  protected  and  safely  re- 
delivered  :  he  the  said  Florence  Fitz-Patrick  possessing  those 
goods,  afterwards  caused  the  said  merchant  and  his  wife  to 
be  hanged ;  and  they  have  credibly  heard,  that  the  said  Flo- 
rence Fitz-Patrick  also  hanged  lieutenant  Keiss  and  his  son, 
one  Hughes,  a  school-master,  and  divers  other  Protestants."449 

"  The  examination  of  Jane,  the  wife  of  Thomas  Stewart, 
late  of  the  town  and  county  of  Kilkenny,  merchant,  sworn  and 
examined  before  his  majesty's  commissioners,  in  that  behalf 
authorized,  deposeth  and  saith : 

"  All  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  British  that  then 
could  be  found  within  the  same  town  (saving  this  deponent, 
•who  rvas  so  sick  that  she  could  not  stir)  were  summoned  to 
go  into  the  gaol,  and  as  many  as  could  be  met  with,  all  were 
carried  and  put  into  the  gaol,  where,  about  twelve  o'clock  in  the 
night,  they  were  stripped  stark  naked,  and  after  most  of  them 

448  Temple,  92.  449  Idem,  1 1 7. 


412  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

might  be  allowed   to  pass  without  comment, 
which  would  then  be  wholly  superfluous :  but  in 

were  most  cruelly  and  barbarously  murdered  with  swords, 
axes,  and  skeins,  and  particularly  by  two  butchers,  named 
James  Buts  and  Robert  Buts,  of  Sligo,  who  murdered  many 
of  them;  wherein  also  were  actors,  Charles  O'Connor,  the 
friar,  and  Hugh  O'Connor  aforenamed,  brother  to  the  said 
Teigue  O'Connor,  Kedagh  O'Hart,  labourer,  Richard  Walsh 
and  Thomas  Walsh,  the  one  the  jailor,  the  other  a  butcher,  and 
divers  others  whom  she  cannot  name :   and  saith,  that  above 
thirty  of  the  British  which  were  so  put  into  the  gaol,  were 
then  and  there  murdered  :  besides  Robert  Gumble,  then  pro- 
vost of  the  said  town  of  Sligo,  Edward  Nusham,  and  Edward 
Mercer,  who  were  wounded  and  left  for  dead  amongst  the  rest, 
and  Joe  Stewart,  this  deponent's  son,  which  four  being  the 
next  day  found  alive,   yet  all  besmeared  with  blood,  were 
spared  to  live.     All  which  particulars  the  deponent  -was  credi- 
bly told  by  those  that  escaped,  and  by  her  Irish  servants  and 
others  of  the  town :  and  saith,  that  some  of  the  women  so 
murdered  being  big  with  child  (by  their  wounds  received)  the 
very  arms  and  legs  of  the  children  in  their  wombs  appeared, 
and  wert  thrust  out ;  and  one  woman,  viz.  Isabel  Beard,  being 
in  the  house  of  the  friars,  and  hearing  the  lamentable  cry  that 
was  made,  ran  into  the  street,  and  was  pursued  by  one  of  the 
friar's  men  unto  the  river,  where  she  was  barbarously  mur- 
dered, and  found  the  next  day,  with  the  child's  feet  appearing 
and  thrust  out  of  her  wounds  in  her  sides  :  and  further  saith, 
that  on  the  said  sixth  day  of  January,  there  were  murdered  in 
the  streets  of  the  town  of  Sligo,  these  British  Protestants  fol- 
lowing, viz.  William  Shiels  and  John  Shiels,  his  son,  William 
Mapwell  and  Robert  Akin  :  and  the  deponent  further  saith, 
(as  she  was  credibly  informed  by  the  persons  before  named} 
that  the  inhuman  rebels,  after  their  murders  committed  in  the 
said  gaol,  laid  and  placed  some  of  the  dead  bodies  of  the  naked 
murdered  men  upon  the  naked  bodies  of  the  women,  in  a  most 
immodest  posture,  not  fit  for  chaste  ears  to  hear :   in  which 
posture  they  continued  to  be  seen  the  next  morning  by  those 
Irish  of  the  town  that  came  into  the  said  goal,  who  were  de- 
lighted in  those  bloody  murders  and  uncivil  actions ;  and  that 


HEARSAY  EVIDENCE.  41 3 

the  present  extraordinary  and  unparalleled  one, 
more  than  usual  care  is  necessary,  to  probe  the 

they  of  the  Irish,  that  came  to  bury  them,  stood  up  to  the  mid- 
leg  in  the  blood  and  brains  of  those  that  were  so  murdered!  !  f 
who  were  carried  out,  and  cast  into  a  pit  digged  for  that  pur- 
pose, in  the  garden  of  Mr.  Ricrofts,  minister  of  Sligo."450 

"  John  Birne,  late  of  Dongannon,  in  the  county  Tyrone, 
deposeth,  That  he  heard  some  of  the  native  Irish,  that  were 
somewhat  more  merciful  than  the  rest,  complain  that  two 
young  cow-boys,  within  the  parish  of  Tullah,  had  at  several 
times  murdered  and  drowned  thirty-six  women  and  children. 
Jurat.  January  12,  1643."451 

"  William  Lucas,  of  the  city  of  Kilkenny,  deposeth,  That 
although  he  lived  in  the  town  till  about  five  or  six  weeks  past, 
in  which  time  he  is  assured  divers  murders  and  cruel  acts 
were  committed,  yet  he  durst  not  go  abroad  to  see  any  of  them; 
but  he  doth  confidently  believe,  that  the  rebels  having  brought 
seven  Protestants'  heads,  whereof  one  was  the  head  of  Mr. 
Bingham,  a  minister,  they  did  then  and  there,  as  triumphs  of 
their  victories,  set  them  upon  the  market-cross,  on  a  market 
day ;  and  that  the  rebels  slashed,  stabbed,  and  mangled  those 
heads ;  put  a  gag,  or  carrot,  in  the  said  Mr.  Bingham's  mouth ; 
slit  up  his  cheeks  to  his  ears,  laying  a  leaf  of  a  Bible  before 
him,  and  bid  him  preach,  for  his  mouth  was  wide  enough;  and 
after  they  had  solaced  themselves,  threw  those  heads  into  a 
hole,  in  St.  James's  Green.  Jurat.  August  16,  1643."45* 

"  Christian  Stanhaw,  the  relict  of  Henry  Stanhaw,  late  of 
the  county  of  Armagh,  Esquire,  deposeth,  that  a  woman  that 
formerly  lived  near  Laugale,  absolutely  informed  this  deponent, 
that  the  rebels  enforced  a  great  number  of  Protestants,  men, 
women,  and  children,  into  a  house  which  they  set  on  fire,  pur- 
posely to  burn  them ;  as  they  did ;  and  still  as  any  of  them  of- 
fered to  come  out,  to  shun  the  fire,  the  wicked  rebels,  $vith 
sithes,  which  they  had  in  their  hands,  cut  them  in  pieces,  and 
cast  them  into  the  fire,  and  burned  them  with  the  rest.  Jurat. 
July  23,  1642."453 

450  Temple,  108.  451  Idem,  97. 

452  Idem,  97.  "3  Idem,  94. 


414  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

ulcerated  wound,  and  heal  the  disordered  state 
of  the  public  mind,  on  the  most  stupendous  sys- 

"  John  Montgomery,  of  the  county  of  Monaghan,  sworn 
and  examined,  saith,  That  one  Brian  Mac  Erony,  ringleader 
of  the  rebels  in  the  county  of  Fermanagh,  killed  ensign  Floyd, 
Robert  Worcnum,  and  four  of  their  servants,  one  of  which 
they  having  wounded,  though  not  to  death,  they  buried  quick. 
As  also,  that  he  was  credibly  informed,  that  the  daughter-in- 
law  of  one  Foard,  in  the  parish  of  Clownish,  being  delivered 
of  a  child  in  the  fields,  the  rebels,  who  had  formerly  killed  her 
husband  and  father,  killed  her  and  two  of  her  children,  and 
suffered  the  dogs  to  eat  up  and  devour  her  new-born  child. 
Jurat.  June  26,  1642,"4S4 

"  John  Stubs,  of  the  county  of  Longford,  gentleman,  depo- 
seth,  That  he  heard,  by  some  of  the  sheriff" 's  men,  that  Henry 
Mead  and  his  wife,  John  Bigel,  William  Stell,  and  Daniel 
Stubs,  the  deponent's  brother,  were  put  to  death  by  Lysach 
Farrol's  and  Oli  Fitz-gerrald's  men,  who  hanged  them  upon 
a  windmill,  and,  when  they  were  half  dead,  they  cut  them  to 
pieces  with  their  skeins.  Jurat.  Nov.  21,  1641."455 

"  Charity  Chappel,  late  wife  to  Richard  Chappel,  esquire,  of 
the  town  and  county  of  Armagh,  deposeth,  That,  as  she  hath 
credibly  heard,  the  rebels  murdered  great  numbers  of  Protest- 
ants, and  that  many  children  were  seen  murdered  in  vaults 
and  cellars,  whither  they  fled  to  hide  themselves.  Jurat.  Ju- 
ly 2,  1642."456 

Extract  from  the  Deposition  of  John  Carmick. 

"  Twenty-two  castles  were  seized  upon,  and  the  church  of 
Monah,  with  eighteen  Protestants  burnt  in  it :  seven  hundred 
and  sixty-four  Protestants  were  destroyed  in  that  county  ;  and 
I  did  hear  that  there  were  about  152,000,  that  they  had  de- 
stroyed in  that  province  of  Ulster,  in  the  first  four  months  of 
the  rebellion.  JOHN  CARMicK.1'457 

454  Temple,  89.  455  Idem,  90. 

455  Idem,  90.  457  Idem,  225. 


HEARSAY  EVIDENCE.  415 

tern  of  imposture  that  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
We  shall  therefore  analyze  two  of  those  deposi- 
tions, the  most  remarkable  of  the  whole. 

Of  all  the  witnesses  who  have  sworn  to  the 
large  collection  of  legendary  tales,  on  the  subject 
of  the  pretended  massacre  and  cruelties  of  the 
Irish,  there  is  none  on  whom  so  much  reliance 
has  been  placed  as  dean  Robert  Maxwell,  after- 
wards bishop  of  Kilmore.  His  clerical  character 
appeared  calculated  to  produce,  and  did  inspire 
confidence.  His  testimony  is  therefore  a  fair 
subject  of  discussion.  If  it  pass  the  ordeal  of 
investigation,  and  come  out  pure  and  perfectly 
admissible,  it  will  afford  a  favourable  augury  for 
the  rest :  but  if  it  be  abandoned  as  utterly  inde- 
fensible, without  possibility  of  appeal,  then  its 

"  Thomas  Green,  in  the  parish  of  Dumcaes,  in  the  county 
Armagh,  yeoman,  and  Elizabeth  his  wife,  sworn  and  examin- 
ed, saith,  That  the  deponent,  Thomas  Green,  hardly  escaped 
away  with  his  life ;  but  that  the  other  deponent  and  six  chil- 
dren were  left  all  amongst  the  rebels,  and  so  stripped  of  their 
clothes,  and  hunger-starved,  that  five  of  the  children  died  ; 
and  she,  this  deponent,  being  put  to  beg  amongst  the  merciless 
rebels,  was  at  length  rescued  from  them  by  the  Scottish  army: 
she  further  saith,  that  the  rebels  did  drown,  in  a  bog,  seven- 
teen men,  women,  and  children,  at  one  time,  within  the  said 
parish  ;  and  she  is  verily  persuaded  that  the  rebels,  at  several 
times  and  places  within  the  county  of  Armagh,  drowned  above 
four  thousand  Protestants,  enforcing  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
these  vert/  aged  people,  who  were  not  able  to  go  themselves,  to 
take  them  out  of  their  beds  and  houses,  and  carry  them  to 
drowning,  especially  in  the  river  of  Toll,  in  the  parish  of  Log- 
hall.  Jurat.  November  10,  1643."458 

458  Temple,  91. 


416  VINDICIJE   HIBERNIC-E. 

condemnation  involves  that  of  the  elaborate  pro- 
ductions of  all  his  fellow-labourers.  Indeed  we 
should  be  willing  to  rest  the  merits  of  the  case  on 
this  individual  deposition  ;  and  hope  to  prove  that 
a  more  crude,  wild,  extravagant,  and  ridiculous 
farrago  of  absurdity  and  falsehood  was  never 
offered  to  the  "  greedy  maw"  of  public  credulity 
and  Gullibility.  The  specimens  we  have  already 
given,  on  the  subject  of  the  ghosts,*  and  the 
gross  contradiction  respecting  the  number  of 
154,000  massacred,!  would  be  enough  to  prove 
that  he  had 

"  Laid  perjury  on  his  soul." 

But  we  deem  it  by  no  means  improper  to  offer 
to  the  consideration  of  the  reader,  another  col- 
lection of  extracts^  from  the  evidence  of  this 

J  Extracts  from  the  Deposition  of  Dean  Robert  Maxwell, 
sworn  to,  August  22,  1642. 

"  Deponent  saith,  That  the  rebels  themselves  told  him,  this 
deponent,  that  they  murdered  nine  hundred  fifty-four  in  one 
morning,  in  the  county  of  Antrim ;  and  that,  besides  them, 
they  supposed  they  killed  above  eleven  or  twelve  hundred 
more  in  that  county  :  they  told  him  hkervise,  that  colonel  Brian 
O'Neil  killed  about  a  thousand  in  the  county  of  Dowlf^besides 
three  hundred  killed  near  Killeleigh,  and  many  hundreds,  both 
before  and  after,  in  both  those  counties.459 

"  That  he  heard  Sir  Phelim  likewise  report,  that  he  killed  six 
hundred  English  at  Garvagh,  in  the  county  of  Derry ;  and 
that  he  had  left  neither  man,  woman  nor  child  alive  in  the  ba- 
rony of  Wunterlong,  in  the  county  of  Tyrone,  and  betwixt 
Armagh  and  the  Newry,  in  the  several  plantations  and  lands 

*  Supra,  46.  f  Supra,  45. 

459  Temple,  113.  Borlace,  App.  135. 


HEARSAY  EVIDENCE.  417 

reverend  divine,  to  satisfy  the  most  incredulous 
readers,  what  a  miserable  support  can  be  afforded 
to  the  tale  of  the  massacre,  by  such  a  voucher. 
The  dean  swears,  with  great  gravity,  in  one 
part  of  his  deposition,  that  "  there  were  upwards 

of  Sir  Archibald  Atcheson,  John  Hamilton,  Esq.  the  lord  Caul- 
field,  and  the  lord  Mountnorris  :  and  saith  also,  that  there 
were  above  two  thousand  of  the  British  murdered  for  the  most 
part  in  their  own  houses,  whereof  he  was  informed  by  a  Scots- 
man, who  was  in  those  parts  with  Sir  Phelim,  and  saw  their 
houses  filled  with  their  dead  bodies.  In  the  Glenwood,  to- 
wards Dromore,  there  were  slaughtered,  as  the  rebels  told  the 
deponent,  upwards  of  twelve  thousand  in  all,  who  were  all  killed 
in  their  flight  to  the  county  of  Down.  The  number  of  the 
people  drowned  at  the  bridge  of  Portnedown  are  diversely 
reported,  according  as  men  staid  amongst  the  rebels.  This 
deponent,  who  staid  as  long  as  any,  and  had  better  intelligence 
than  most  of  the  English  amongst  them,  and  best  reason  to 
know  the  truth,  saith,  There  were  f  by  their  own  report}  one 
hundred  and  ninety  drowned  with  Mr.  Fullerton ;  at  another 
time,  they  threw  one  hundred  and  forty  over  the  said  bridge  ; 
at  another  time,  thirty-six  or  thirty-seven ;  and  so  continued 
drowning  more  or  fewer,  for  seven  or  eight  weeks,  so  as  the 
fewest  which  can  be  supposed  there  to  have  perished,  must 
needs  be  above  one  thousand,  besides  as  many  more  drowned 
between  that  bridge  and  the  great  lough  of  Montjoy,  besides 
those  that  perished  by  the  sword,  fire,  and  famine,  in  Coubra- 
sil,  and  the  English  plantations  adjacent;  which,  in  regard 
there  escaped  not  three  hundred  out  of  all  these  quarters,  must 
needs  amount  to  many  thousands.460 

"  And  further  saith,  that  he  knew  one  boy,  that  dwelt  near 
unto  himself,  and  not  exceeding  fourteen  years  of  age,  who 
killed,  at  Kinnard,  in  one  night,  fifteen  able  strong  men  with 
his  skein,  they  being  disarmed,  and  most  of  their  feet  in  the 
t.  Another,  not  above  twelve  years  of  age,  killed  two 

480  Temple,  113.  Borlace,  135. 
53 


418  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

of  12,000  slain  in  the  Glenwood,  as  the  rebels 
told  this  deponent;"  there  were  "  954  murdered 
in  one  morning,  as  the  rebels  themselves  told 
him;"  there  were,  moreover,  "  above  2,000  mur- 
dered in  their  own  houses,  as  he  was  informed 
by  a  Scotsman;"  and  Sir  Phelim  O'Neil  had 

zvomen,  at  the  siege  of  Augher.  A  woman,  tenant  to  the  depo- 
nent, killed  seven  men  and -women  of  her  English  fellorv -tenants 
in  one  morning;  and  it  was  very  usual,  in  all  parts,  for  their 
Children  to  murder  the  Protestants'  children;  and  sometimes 
with  lath  swords,  heavy  and  well  sharpened,  they  would 
venture  upon  men  and  women  of  riper  years,  cruelties  not 
to  be  believed,  if  there  were  not  so  many  eye-witnesses  of 
them."461 

"  And  further  saith,  That  the  rebels  would  send  their  chil- 
dren abroad  in  great  troops,  and  especially  near  unto  Kinnard, 
armed  with  long  wattles  and  whips,  who  would  therewith  beat 
dead  men's  bodies  about  their  privy  members,  until  they  beat 
or  rather  thrashed  them  off;  then  would  return  in  great  joy  to 
their  parents,  who  received  them  for  such  service  as  it  were 
in  triumph."462 

"  Further,  this  deponent  saith,  That  it  was  usual  sport  with 
one  Mac-Mahon,  captain  of  the  castle  and  town  of  Monaghan, 
(as  the  said  Mac-Mahon  confessed  before  Mr.  Hugh  Echline 
and  many  others)  to  take  a  wooden  prick  or  broach,  and  thrust 
it  up  into  the  fundament  of  an  English  or  Scotchman,  and  then 
after  drive  him  about  the  room  with  a  joint  stool,  until,  through 
extreme  pain,  he  either  fainted,  or  gave  content  to  the  specta- 
tors by  some  notable  skips  and  frisks ;  which  rare  invention 
he  offered  to  put  in  practice  at  the  same  time,  and  in  the  same 
place  where  he  boasted  thereof,  but  that  the  said  Mr.  Echline 
prevailed  with  him  to  omit  it,  as  sufficiently  (without  any  fur- 
ther demonstration)  believing  the  excellency  of  the  sport."465 

461  Borlace,  App.  136.  4fi2  Temple,  113. 

463  Borlace,  App.  138. 


REBEL    COCKS    AND    DOGS.  419 

"  left  neither  man,  woman,  nor  child  alive,  from 
Armagh  to  Newry,  as  he  heard  Sir  Phelim  him- 
self report." 

The  inhumanity  of  the  Irish  to  the  English 
beasts,  according  to  the  dean,  was  really  shocking. 
They  used  to  cut  collops  off  their  backs,  and  then 
let  them  loose  in  the  woods,  till,  O  miraculous ! 
they  roared  the  flesh  off  their  backs!  This  fit  of 
roaring  would  sometimes  last  for  two  or  three 
days  together  !* 

But  the  most  marvellous  part  of  the  story  is, 
that  the  dogs  and  cocks  became  traitors !  and 
appear  to  have  entered  into  a  league  with  the 
rebels ! !  For,  during  "  the  three  first  days  of  the 
rebellion,"  they  neither  crowed  nor  barked,  to 
alarm  their  masters,  "  not  even  when  the  rebels 
came  by  night,  in  great  multitudes,  to  rob  and 
murder  them  ! !  !"f 

*  "  At  the  siege  of  Augher,  they  would  not  kill  any  English 
beast,  and  then  eat  it ;  but  they  cut  collops  out  of  them,  being 
alive  ;  letting  them  roar  till  they  had  no  more  flesh  upon  their 
backs,  so  that  sometimes  a  beast  would  live  two  or  three  days 
together  in  that  torment."464 

f  "  And  the  deponent  further  saith,  That  the  first  three  days 
and  nights  of  this  present  rebellion,  viz.  October  23,  24,  and 
25,  it  rvas  generally  observed,  that  no  cock  crew,  or  any  dog 
was  heard  to  bark,  no  not  when  the  rebels  came  in  great 
multitudes  unto  the  Protestants''  houses  by  night  to  rob  and 
murder  them;  and  about  three  or  four  nights  before  the  six 
and  fifty  persons  were  taken  out  of  the  deponent's  house  and 
drowned,  and  amongst  those  the  deponent's  brother,  lieutenant 
James  Maxwell,  in  the  dark  of  the  moon,  about  one  of  the 


464 


Temple,  112.  Borlace,  133. 


420  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

Who  can  wade  through  such  a  miserable  mass 
of  folly  and  fraud,  without  bitterly  exclaiming, 

"  How  God  and  good  men  hate  so  foul  a  liar  J"465 

Stratford's  deposition*  is  exactly  of  the  same 
character  as  Maxwell's ;  and  is  so  distinctly  and 

clock  at  night,  a  light  was  observed,  in  manner  of  a  long  pillar , 
to  shine  for  a  long  -way  through  the  air,  and  refracted  upon  the 
north  gabel  of  the  house.  It  gave  so  great  a  light,  about  an 
hour  together,  that  divers  of  the  watch  read  both  letters  and 
books  of  a  very  small  character  thereby.  The  former  the  de- 
ponent knoweth  to  be  most  true,  both  by  his  own  experience, 
and  the  general  observation  of  as  many  as  the  deponent  met 
with  in  the  county  Armagh.  The  latter  was  seen  by  all  those 
of  the  deponent's  family,  and  besides  by  many  of  his  Irish 

guard. 

"  ROBERT  MAXWELL. 

"  Deposed,  August  22, 1642. 
"  JOHN  WATSON, 
"  WILLIAM  ALDRicn."466 

*  "  Captain  Anthony  Stratford  deposeth  and  saith,  that 
"  These  Protestant  ministers  following,  about  the  beginning 
of  the  present  rebellion,  were  murdered  in  the  counties  of  Ty- 
rone and  Armagh,  viz.  Mr.  John  Mathew,  Mr.  Blythe,  Mr. 
Hastings,  Mr.  Smith,  Mr.  Darragh,  Mr.  Birge,  and  eight 
more,  whose  names  this  deponent  hath  forgotten,  by  the  rebels, 
none  of  which  would  the  rebels  permit  to  be  buried ;  the  names 
of  such  as  murdered,  this  examinant  knoweth  not ;  his  cause 
of  knowledge  of  the  said  murders  is,  that  some  of  his,  this  de- 
ponent1 s  servants,  who  were  among  the  rebels,  did  give  him  the 
relation  !  !  !  and  he  verily  believeth  them  ;  and  besides,  this 
deponent  heard  the  same  confessed  and  averred  by  many  of 
the  rebels  themselves,  and  by  some  of  those  Protestants  that 
had  escaped :  and  that  he  this  deponent  was  a  prisoner  among 
the  rebels,  at  Castlecaufteld,  near  the  place  of  those  murders, 

WHERE    HE    CONTINUED    FOURTEEN    MONTHS  !       And  further 

463  Shakspeare.  *66  Borlace,  App.  136,  137. 


HEARSAY   EVIDENCB.  421 

legibly  stamped  with  the  broad  seal  of  perjury, 
that  even  the  most  superficial  observer  cannot 
mistake  its  character. 

saith,  that  in  Dungannon,  in  the  county  of  Tyrone,  or  near 
thereunto,  the  rebels  murdered  three  hundred  and  sixteen 
Protestants ;  and  between  Charlemont  and  Dungannon,  above 
four  hundred ;  that  there  were  murdered  and  drowned  at  and 
in  the  river  of  Benburb,  the  Black  water,  between  the  counties 
of  Armagh  and  Tyrone,  two  hundred  and  six  Protestants ; 
and  Patrick  Mac-Crew,  of  Dungannon,  aforesaid,  murdered 
thirty-one  in  one  morning;  and  trvo  young-  rebels,  John  Beg- 
Brian  and  Harry,  murdered  in  the  said  county  of  Tyrone,  one 
hundred  and  forty  poor  women  and  children  that  could  make 
no  resistance  :  and  that  the  wife  of  Brien  Kelly,  of  Loghall,  in 
the  county  of  Armagh,  (one  of  the  rebels'  captains,)  did  -with 
her  own  hands  murder  forty-five.  And  deponent  further  saith, 
that  6ne  Thomas  King,  sometimes  sergeant  to  the  late  lord 
Caufield's  company  (which  this  deponent  commanded)  he  be- 
ing forced  to  serve  under  the  rebels,  and  was  one  of  the  pro- 
vost marshals,  gave  the  deponent  a  list  of  every  householder's 
name  so  murdered,  and  the  number  of  the  persons  so  murder- 
ed ;  which  list  this  deponent  durst  not  keep :  At  Portnedown 
there  were  drowned  at  several  times  about  three  hundred  and 
eight,  who  were  sent  away  by  about  forty,  or  such  like  num- 
bers at  once,  with  convoys,  and  there  drowned :  There  was  a 
lough  near  Loghall  aforesaid,  where  were  drowned  above 
two  hundred,  of  which  this  deponent  was  informed  by  several 
persons,  and  particularly  by  the  wife  of  doctor  Hodges,  and 
two  of  her  sons,  who  were  present  and  designed  for  the  like 
end :  but  by  God's  mercy,  that  gave  them  favour  in  the  eyes 
of  some  of  the  rebels,  they  escaped  ;  and  the  said  Mrs.  Hodges 
and  her  sons  gave  the  deponent  a  list  of  the  names  of  many  of 
those  that  were  so  drowned,  which  the  deponent  durst  not  keep; 
and  saith  that  the  said  doctor  Hodges  was  employed  by  Sir 
Phelim  O'Neil  to  make  powder ;  but  he  failing  of  his  under- 
taking, was  first  half  hanged,  then  cut  down,  and  kept  prison- 
er three  months,  and  then  murdered  with  forty-four  more, 
within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  Charlemont  aforesaid,  they  being 


422  VIND1C02    HIBERNICJE. 

The  insurrection  began  on  the  23d  of  October, 
1641.    The  deposition  of  this  man  was  taken  on 

by  Tirlogh  O'Neil,  brother  to  Sir  Phelim,  sent  to  Dungannon, 
prisoners,  and  in  the  way  murdered.  This  deponent  was  show- 
ed the  pit  where  they  were  all  cast  in. 

"  At  a  mill  pond  in  the  parish  of  Kilamen,  in  the  county  of 
Tyrone,  there  were  drowned  in  one  day  three  hundred,  and 
in  the  same  parish  there  were  murdered  of  English  and  Scot- 
tish twelve  hundred,  as  this  deponent  was  informed  by  Mr. 
Birge,  the  late  minister  of  the  said  parish*  who  certified  the 
same  under  his  hand,  -which  note  the  deponent  durst  not  keep  : 
the  said  Mr.  Birge  was  murdered  three  months  after :  all  which 
murders  were  in  the  first  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion,  but  the 
particular  times  this  deponent  cannot  remember,  neither  the 
persons  by  whom  they  were  committed.  This  deponent  was 
credibly  informed  by  the  said  sergeant  and  others  of  this  depo- 
nents servants  (who  kept  company  with  the  rebels,)  and  saw 
the  same,  that  many  young  children  were  cut  into  quarters 
and  gobbets  by  the  rebels,  and  that  eighteen  Scottish  infants 
were  hanged  on  a  clothier's  tenterhook,  and  that  they  murder- 
ed a  young  fat  Scottish  man,  and  made  candles  of  his  grease  ; 
they  took  another  Scottish  man  and  ripped  up  his  belly,  that 
they  might  come  to  his  small  guts,  the  one  end  whereof  they 
tied  to  a  tree,  and  made  him  go  round  until  he  had  drawn 
them  all  out  of  his  body ;  they  then  saying,  that  they  would 
try  whether  a  dog's  or  a  Scotchman's  guts  rvere  the  longer. 

"  ANTHONY  STRATFORD. 
"  Deposed,  March  9,  1643,  before  us, 

"  HENRY  JONES, 

"  HENRY  BRERETON."467 

*  The  wonderful  density  of  the  population  of  this  parish, 
where  fifteen  hundred  persons  were  murdered,  might  excite 
doubts,  but  for  the  circumstance,  that  this  important  fact  was 
"  certified  by  Mr.  Birge^  under  his  own  hand."  It  is  much 
to  be  regretted  that  the  deponent  "  durst  not  keep1''  this  valu- 
able document,  which  was  worthy  of  being  preserved  in  the 
archives  of  Ireland. 

467  Temple,  110. 


HEARSAY  EVIDENCE.  423 

the  9th  of  March,  1643 ;  that  is,  above  sixteen 
months  from  the  time  when  it  commenced.  By 
his  own  account,  he  was  for  fourteen  months  a 
prisoner!!  He  does  not  state  when  he  was  first 
confined ;  but  we  will  suppose  one  month  after 
the  first  date,  and  that  he  was  released  one  month 
before  the  second.  Yet  he  swears  positively  to  va- 
rious circumstances,  which  he  pretends  occurred, 
in  different  parts  of  the  province,  during  his  im- 
prisonment, with  as  much  confidence  as  if  he  had 
been  an  eye-witness  of  the  whole ;  and  so  shame- 
less was  the  villain,  so  profligate  were  the  wretch- 
ed magistrates  who  took  his  deposition,  so  aban- 
doned was  the  spirit  of  the  age,  that  he,  without 
scruple,  avowed  his  perjury,  by  stating  the  sources 
of  his  information,  which  were  as  various  as  the 
different  items  of  his  testimony.  In  one  case, 
"  some  of  his  servants,  who  were  among  the  rebels, 
did  give  him  the  information;"  in  another,  "  Tho- 
mas King  did  give  him  a  list  of  the  householders 
so  murdered;"  in  another,  "the  wife  of  Dr.  Hodges 
and  her  two  sons  gave  him  a  list"  in  another,  the 
murder  of  fifteen  hundred  in  one  parish  is  "  cer- 
tified by  Mr.  Birge,  under  his  own  hand;"  and  in 
this  manner,  he  proceeds  throughout  the  whole 
deposition. 

We  now  close  the  first  class  of  the  testimony, 
on  which  the  wretched  legend  of  the  Irish  mas- 
sacre rests.  We  trust  the  reader  will  agree  that 
it  fully  realizes  Warner's  description,  and  is  no- 
thing more  than  a  collection  of  "  idle,  silly  tales."' 


424  V1NDICI)E   HIBERNIC*. 

of  "  what  this  body  heard  another  body  say."*** 
One  man  swears,  that  he  "  heard,  and  verily  be- 
lieveth;"  another,  that  he  "  heard  it  credibly  re- 
ported among  the  rebels  themselves ;"  a  third, 
that  "  an  Irish  gentleman  told  him  and  others ;" 
a  fourth,  that  "  he  was  informed ;"  and  a  fifth, 
that  "«  woman  absolutely  informed  this  deponent;" 
and  similar  ribald  nonsense,  to  which  nothing  but 
the  spirit  of  fraud,  falsehood,  perjury,  and  rapine, 
that  predominated  among  the  rulers  of  Ireland 
at  that  period,  could  have  given  currency ;  and 
which  would  not,  at  present,  be  admitted  as  evi- 
dence, by  the  most  paltry,  pettifogging  justice  of 
the  peace,  against  the  lowest  wretch  in  the  com- 
munity. 

Is  there  a  man,  not  lost  to  every  sense  of  ho- 
nour and  justice,  who  can  read  this  account  with- 
out horror,  amazement,  indignation,  and  regret  ? 
horror  at  the  atrocious  wickedness  of  the  host  of 
perjurers,  who  were  thus  made  the  instruments 
to  plunder  the  property  and  sacrifice  the  lives  of 
the  ill-fated  Irish  ;  amazement  at  the  Boeotian  and 
superlative  stupidity  of  those  who  committed 
themselves  by  perjuries  open  to  the  detection 
of  the  most  superficial  observer ;  indignation  at 
the  base  imposture,  or  gross  neglect,  which  has 
led  so  many  subsequent  writers,  particularly 
Hume,  to  poison  the  pure  streams  of  history,  by 
recourse  to  such  a  pestilential  source  as  this 
vile,  this  ribald  story ;  and  profound  regret,  if  he 

468  Warner,  146. 


A   MIRACLE.  425 

have  hitherto,  as  is  most  probable,  been  deluded 
into  a  belief  in  one  of  the  most  wicked,  base,  and 
unfounded  romances  ever  palmed  on  a  deceived 
world,  in  the  shape  of  history. 

Of  the  second  class  of  depositions,  those  which 
assert  things  contrary  to  the  known  laws  of  na- 
ture, we  have  given  so  many  examples,  pages  41 
to  46,  that  we  deem  it  wholly  unnecessary  to 
disgrace  our  work  with  any  further  instances ; 
except  one  extravagant  tale,  contained  in  the 
deposition  of  dean  Maxwell,  which  we  omitted 
in  its  proper  place.  This  reverend  perjurer 
swore,  that  the  dead  bodies  of  murdered  English- 
men lay  unburied,  and  would  not  sometimes  begin 
to  stink  and  infect  the  air,  until  four  or  free  weeks 
after  the  murders  committed!  He  that  can  swal- 
low this  story,  must  be  endowed  with  faith  enough 
to  receive,  as  genuine  history,  the  Arabian  Nights' 
Entertainments,  Gulliver's  Travels,  and  the  Seven 
Champions  of  Christendom. 

"  And  further  this  deponent  saith,  That  the  rebels  having 
exposed  the  murdered  bodies  of  the  British  so  long  unto  the 
public  view  and  censure,  that  they  began  to  stink  and  infect 
the  air,  which  commonly  (being  a  thing  very  strange)  -would 
not  sometimes  happen  till  four  or  Jive  -weeks  after  the  murders 
committed!  !!!  they  usually  permitted  some  of  their  bodies  to 
be  removed  and  cast  into  ditches.1'469 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  a  cursory  examina- 
tion of  the  third  class,  which,  though  not  resting 

469  Borlace,  App.  138. 
54 


426  VINDICUE   HIBERNIC.E. 

on  hearsay,  or  not  absolutely  impossible,  are  yet 
so  utterly  improbable,  as  to  be  unworthy  of  belief. 

One  of  the  witnesses  swears,  that  she  and  her 
six  children  had  nothing  to  eat  for  three  weeks, 
while  they  lay  in  a  cave,  but  two  old  calfskins, 
which  they  beat  with  stones,  and  ate  them  hair 
and  all!* 

Another,  seventy-five  years  old,  swears  that 
she  was  stripped  seven  times  in  one  day,  by  the 
rebels,  as  she  was  proceeding  to  Dublin.! 

Another  swears,  that  all  the  nobles  in  the  king- 
dom, that  were  Papists,  had  a  hand  in  the  plot. 
It  is  too  obvious  to  require  illustration,  that  even 
if  this  were  a  fact,  it  was  hardly  possible  for  any 
man  to  be  so  well  assured  of  it,  as  to  be  able 
safely  to  take  this  sweeping  oath.  But,  setting 

*  "  Mary  Barlow  deposeth,  That  her  husband  being  by  the 
rebels  hanged  before  her  face,  she  and  six  children  were  strip- 
ped stark  naked,  and  turned  out  a  begging  in  the  frost  and 
snow,  by  means  whereof  they  were  almost  starved,  having' 
nothing  to  eat  in  three  -weeks,  -while  they  lay  in  a  cave,  but  two 
old  calf  skins,  which  they  beat  with  stones,  and  so  ate  them 
hair  and  all,  her  children  crying  out  unto  her,  rather  to  go  out, 
and  be  killed  by  the  rebels,  than  to  starve  there."470 

f  "  Margaret  Fermeny,  in  the  county  of  Fermanagh,  depos- 
eth, that  the  rebels  bound  her  and  her  husband's  hands  behind 
them,  to  make  them  confess  their  money,  and  dragged  them 
up  and  down  in  a  rope,  and  cut  his  throat  in  her  own  sight 
with  a  skein,  having  first  knocked  him  down  and  stripped  him; 
and  that  being  an  aged  woman,  seventy-five  years  old,  as  she 
came  up  afterwards  to  Dublin,  she  was  stripped  by  the  Irish 
seven  times  in  one  day."471 

470  Temple,  90.  471  Idem,  88. 


ANOTHER  MIRACLE.  427 

this  consideration  wholly  aside,  the  perjury  is 
proved  by  the  simple  fact,  that  the  earl  of  Clan- 
rickarde,  and  other  Catholic  noblemen,  were  not 
only  wholly  unconcerned  in  the  insurrection,  but 
absolutely  fought  against  their  countrymen.* 

Another  swears,  that  two  and  twenty  widows 
were  stripped  stark  naked,  and  driven  out  into 
the  woods,  where  they  remained  in  that  condi- 
tion from  Tuesday  till  Saturday,  and  the  snow 
unmelted  lay  long  on  some  of  their  skins  /f 

*  "  Patrick  O'Brien,  of  the  parish  of  Galloom,  in  the  county 
of  Fermanagh,  affirmeth,  upon  oath,  That  all  the  nobles  in  the 
kingdom,that  -were  Papists,  had  a  hand  in  this  plot,  as  well  as 
the  lord  Macguire,  Hugh  Oge,  and  Mac-Mahown  ;  that  they 
expected  aid  out  of  Spain,  by  Owen  Roe  O'Neal ;  and  that  co- 
lonel Plunket,  one  of  those  that  was  to  be  an  actor  in  the  sur- 
prise of  the  castle  of  Dublin,  told  him  that  he  knew  of  this 
plot  eight  years  since ;  and  that  within  these  three  years,  he 
hath  been  more  fully  acquainted  with  it."47* 

f  "  Magdalen  Redman,  late  of  the  Dowris,  in  King's  county, 
widow,  being  sworn  and  examined,  deposeth  and  saith,  that 
she,  this  deponent,  and  divers  other  Protestants,  her  neigh- 
bours, and  amongst  the  rest  twenty-two  widows,  after  they 
were  all  robbed,  were  also  stripped,  stark  naked,  and  then  co- 
vering themselves  in  a  house  with  straw,  the  rebels  then  and 
there  lighted  the  straw  with  fire,  and  threw  amongst  them,  on 
purpose  to  burn  them ;  where  they  had  been  burned  or  smo- 
thered, but  that  some  of  the  rebels  more  pitiful  than  the  rest, 
commanded  these  cruel  rebels  to  forbear,  so  as  they  escaped : 
yet  the  rebels  kept  and  drove  them  naked  into  the  ivild  -woods, 
from  Tuesday  until  Saturday,  in  frost  and  snow,  so  as  the  snow 
unmelted,  lay  long  upon  some  of  their  skins  !  !  !  and  some  of 
their  children  died  in  their  arms."473 

472  Temple,  61.  <73  Idem,  8 1 , 


428  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICyE. 

It  were  endless  to  recapitulate  the  miserable 
tales  with  which  Temple's  history  is  tilled :  they 
are  as  nauseating  by  their  absurdity,  as  shocking 
by  their  falsehood.  A  few  more  shah1  close  the 
subject. 

This  writer  very  gravely  informs  us,  that  the 
day  previous  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion, 
the  priests  in  many  places  "gave  the  people  a 
dismiss  at  mass,  with  the  liberty  to  go  and  take 
possession  of  the  Englishmen's  lands,  and  to  strip, 
rob,  and  despoil  them  of  all  their  goods  and 
cattle  ;"* 

That  the  Irish  were  determined,  as  soon  as 
they  had  rooted  out  the  English  from  Ireland,  to 
«  go  to  England,  and  not  leave  the  memorial  of 
the  English  name  under  heaven  !"f 

*  "  Whereas  the  priests  did  long  before,  in  their  public  de- 
votions at  mass,  pray  for  a  blessing  upon  a  great  design  they 
had  then  in  hand  ;  so  now,  as  I  have  heard,  they  did  in  many 
places,  the  very  day  before  the  breaking  out  of  this  rebellion, 
give  the  people  a  dismiss  at  mass,  with  free  liberty  to  go  out, 
and  take  possession  of  all  their  lands,  which  they  pretended 
were  unjustly  detained  from  them  by  the  English ;  as  also  to 
strip,  rob,  and  despoil  them  of  all  their  goods  and  cattle."474 

f  "  The  friars  exhorted  the  people  with  tears  to  spare  none  of 
the  English ;  that  the  Irish  were  resolved  to  destroy  them  out 
of  the  kingdom ;  that  they  would  devour,  as  their  very  word 
was,  the  seed  of  the  English  out  of  Ireland ;  and  thai  when 
they  had  rid  them  there,  they  -would go  over  into  England,  and 
not  leave  the  memorial  of  the  English  name  under  heaven!  !  /"47S 

474  Temple,  79.  47S  Idem,  78. 


STUPID    FALSEHOODS.  429 

That  the  Irish  killed  English  cows  and  sheep, 
merely  because  they  were  English  ;* 

That  some  of  those  that  fled  from  Ireland,  to 
seek  refuge  in  England,  were  so  tossed  about  by 
storms,  that  they  could  not  reach  any  port  in  the 
latter  island  in  three  months ;f 

That  the  Irish  intended  to  have  heavy  penalties 
imposed  on  those  who  should  speak  English  $ 

*  "  The  Irish  in  many  places  killed  English  cows  and  sheep, 
merely  because  they  were  English  ;  in  some  places  they  cut  of 
their  legs,  or  took  a  piece  out  of  their  buttocks,  and  so  let  them 
remain,  still  alive.  The  Lord  Montgarret,  Mr.  Edward  But- 
ler, the  Baron  of  Logmouth,  went  with  their  forces  into  Mun- 
ster,  about  the  beginning  of  the  rising  of  the  Irish  there,  and 
while  they  remained  about  Callen  and  Mallow,  they  consum- 
ed no  less  than  fifty  thousand,  others  say  an  hundred  thousand 
English  sheep,  besides  a  great  abundance  of  English  cattle  : 
and  such  as  they  could  not  eat,  yet  they  killed  and  left  in  great 
multitudes,  stinking,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  country. 
This  testified  by  Henry  Champart,  in  his  examination  taken 
before  Sir  Robert  Meredith,  knight."*76 

f  "  That  which  heightened  the  calamity  of  the  poor  English 
was  their  flight  in  the  winter,  in  such  a  dismal,  stormy,  tem- 
pestuous season,  as  in  the  memory  of  man  had  never  been 
observed  formerly  to  continue  so  long  together.  Yet  the  ter- 
ror of  the  rebels  incomparably  prevailing  beyond  the  rage  of 
the  sea,  most  of  those  who  could  provide  themselves  of  ship- 
ping, though  at  never  so  excessive  rates,  deserted  the  city  : 
and  such  was  the  violence  of  the  winds,  such  continuing  impe- 
tuous storms,  as  several  barques  were  cast  away.  Some,  in 
three  months  after  their  going  from  hence,  could  recover  no 
port  in  England!"*7'1 

\  "  Some  of  the  Irish  could  not  endure  the  very  sound  of 
that  language,  but  would  have  penalties  inflicted  on  them  that 
spake  English."478 

476  Temple,  77.  477  Idem,  57.  ™  Idem,  77. 


430  VINDICIJE   HIBERNIC^. 

That  they  would  not  leave  an  English  man  or 
woman  alive  in  the  kingdom ;  no,  not  so  much 
as  an  English  beast,  or  any  of  the  breed  of  them;* 

That  in  the  beginning  of  the  insurrection,  the 
English  had  such  confidence  in  the  Irish,  that 
they  delivered  their  goods  to  them  for  safe  keep- 
ing, and  even  dug  up  such  of  their  best  things  as 
they  had  hidden  under  ground,  to  deposit  in 
their  custody  ;f 

That  many  thousands  died  in  two  days,  in  the 
town  of  Colerain ;  a  place  not  containing,  proba- 
bly, five  hundred  people  ;f 

That  children  were  compelled  to  be  the  execu- 
tioners of  their  parents ;  wives  to  help  to  hang 
their  husbands ;  and  mothers  to  cast  their  chil- 
dren into  the  water  $ 

*  "  Richard  Claybrook  deposeth,  That  he  heard  Luke  Toole 
say,  that  they  would  not  leave  an  Englishman  or  English  wo- 
man in  the  kingdom ;  that  they  would  riot  leave  an  English 
beast  alive,  or  any  of  the  breed  of  them."*™ 

f  "  So  confident  were  the  English  of  their  good  dealing  at 
first,  as  many  delivered  their  goods  by  retail  unto  them ;  gave 
them  particular  inventories  of  all  they  had ;  nay,  digged  up 
such  of  their  best  things  as  they  had  hidden  under  ground,  to 
deposit  in  their  custody."480 

\  "  James  Redfern  deposeth,  That  in  the  town  of  Colerain, 
since  the  rebellion  began,  there  died  of  robbed  and  stripped 
people,  that  fled  thither  for  succour,  many  hundreds,  besides 
those  of  the  town  that  anciently  dwelt  there  :  and  that  the  mor- 
tality there  was  such  and  so  great,  as  many  thousands  died 
there  in  two  days."481 

§  "  Children  were  enforced  to  carry  their  aged  parents  to 
the  places  designed  for  their  slaughter ;  nay,  some  children 

479  Temple,  96.  48°  Idem,  80.  481  Idem,  81. 


STUPID   FALSEHOODS.  431 

That  the  destruction  of  the  Christians,  in  any 
of  the  heathen  persecutions,  in  any  one  kingdom, 
was  not  greater,  in  many  years,  than  the  de- 
struction of  the  English  by  the  Irish,  in  the  space 
of  two  months!!* 

That  the  Irish  used  to  twist  withes  about  the 
heads  of  the  English,  till  the  blood  sprang  out  of 
the  crowns  of  their  heads  !f 

That  a  murderer's  wife  found  much  fault  with 
her  husband's  soldiers,  for  not  bringing  home  the 
grease  of  a  woman  whom  they  had  slain,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  candles  ;J 

compelled  most  unnaturally  to  be  the  executioners  of  their  own 
parents ;  wives  to  help  to  hang  their  husbands ;  and  mothers 
to  cast  their  own  children  into  the  water."482 

*  "  If  we  shall  take  a  survey  of  the  primitive  times,  and 
look  into  the  sufferings  of  the  first  Christians  that  suffered  un- 
der the  tyranny  and  cruel  persecution  of  those  heathenish 
emperors,  we  shall  not  certainly  find  any  one  kingdom,  though 
of  a  far  larger  continent,  where  there  were  more  Christians 
suffered,  or  more  unparalleled  cruelties  were  acted  in  many 
years  upon  them,  than  were  in  Ireland,  within  the  space  of 
two  months,  after  the  breaking  out  of  this  rebellion."483 

f  "  Some  they  would  take  and  writh  wyths  about  their  heads, 
till  the  blood  sprang  out  of  the  crown  of  their  heads."484 

\  "  Elizabeth  Baskervile  deposeth,  That  she  heard  the  wife 
of  Florence  Fitz-Patrick,Jlnd  much  fault  with  her  husband** s 
soldiers,  because  they  did  not  bring  along  with  them  the  grease 
of  Mrs.  Nicholson,  whom  they  had  slain,  for  her  to  make  can- 
dles withal.  Jurat.  April  26,  1643."485 

482  Temple,  91,  483  Idem,  100. 

484  Idem,  106.  ,485  Idem,  92. 


432  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

That  the  English  were  such  dupes,  that  they 
lent  their  weapons  to  the  Irish.* 

The  following  extract  from  Temple's  history, 
with  the  depositions  on  which  it  is  grounded, 
may  serve  to  amuse  the  reader,  and  will  throw 
additional  light  on  the  mode  in  which  that  ro- 
mance was  compiled : 

"  How  grievous  and  insupportable  must  it  needs  be  to  a 
true  Christian  soul,  to  hear  a  base  villain  boast,  that  his  hands 
were  so  weary  with  killing  and  knocking  down  Protestants 
into  a  bog,  that  he  could  not  lift  his  arms  up  to  his  head?\  or 
others  to  say,  that  they  had  killed  so  many  Englishmen,  that 
the  grease  or  fat  •which  remained  on  their  swords  or  skeins 
might  have  made  an  Irish  candle  f^.  or  to  consider  that  two 
young  cow-boys  should  have  it, in  their  power  to  murder 
thirty-six  Protestants  .?"486 

The  instances  of  mental  obliquity  exhibited 
by  the  Anglo-Hibernian  writers,  which  we  have 

*  "  In  several  places,  the  Irish  came,  under  divers  pretences, 
and  borrowed  such  weapons  as  the  English  had  in  their  houses; 
and  no  sooner  got  them  into  their  hands,  but  they  turned  them 
out  of  their  own  doors  :  as  they  did  at  Glaslough,  in  the  coun- 
ty of  Monaghan.  The  high  sheriff  there  being  an  Irishman 
and  a  Papist,  pretending  that  he  took  their  arms  to  secure  them 
against  the  violence  of  such  of  the  Irish  as  he  understood  to 
be  in  arms  in  the  next  county."487 

|  "  Eleanor  Fullerton,  the  relict  of  William  Fullerton,  late 
parson,  of  Lougall,  deposeth,  That  in  lent,  1641,  a  young 
roguing  cow-boy  gave  out  and  affirmed,  in  this  deponent's 
hearing,  that  his  hands  -were  so  weary  in  killing  and  knocking 
down  Protestants  into  a  bog-pit,  that  he  could  hardly  lift  his 
arms  to  his  head.  Jurat.  Sept.  16,  1642."488 

\  "  Elizabeth  Champion,  late  wife  of  Arthur  Champion,  in 
the  county  of  Fermanagh,  esquire,  saith,  That  she  heard  the 
rebels  say,  that  they  had  killed  so  many  Englishmen,  that  the 

486  Temple,  96.  487  Idem,  37.  488  Idem,  96. 


LAKES   AND    RIVERS    OP    BLOOD.  433 

heretofore  noticed,  are  numerous  and  extraordi- 
nary. A  new  one  here  presents  itself. 

The  spirit  of  lying  and  imposture  which  per- 
vades those  depositions,  would  naturally  induce  a 
sane  mind  to  reject  them  wholly,  as  undeserving 
of  any  attention.  But,  by  a  most  perverted  pro- 
cess of  reasoning,  Leland  ascribes  these  awful 
stories  to  the  terrors  excited  by  the  horrible  cru- 
elties perpetrated  by  the  Irish,  which,  he  sup- 
poses, preyed  on  the  imaginations  of  the  English, 
and  terrified  them  with  the  idea  of  lakes  and 
rivers  of  blood,  fyc.  ^c. 

"  They  who  escaped  the  utmost  fury  of  the  rebels,  languish- 
ed in  miseries  horrible  to  be  described.  Their  imaginations 
•were  overpowered  and  disordered  by  the  recollections  of  torture 
and  butchery.  In  their  distraction,"  [let  us  say,  rather,  in  the 
depraved  and  loathsome  state  of  the  public  mind]  "  every  tale 
of  horror  "was  eagerly  received,  and  every  suggestion  of  frenzy 
and  melancholy  believed  implicitly.  Miraculous  escapes  from 
death,  miraculous  judgments  on  murderers,  lakes  and  rivers  of 
blood,  marks  of  slaughter  indelible  by  every  human  effort,  vi- 
sions of  spirits  chaunting  hymns,  ghosts  rising  from  the  rivers 
and  shrieking  out  revenge;  these  and  such  like  fancies  were 
received  and  propagated  as  incontestible."489 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  stronger  proof 
of  the  blindest  prejudice  than  is  here  exhibited 
by  Leland.  Whoever  has  travelled  through  the 
wretched  legends  which  disgrace  and  dishonour 

grease  or  fat  which  remained  on  their  swords  and  skeins, 
might  well  serve  to  make  an  Irish  candle.  Jurat.  April  14, 
1642."490 

489  Leland,  III.  147.  49°  Temple,  9f. 

55 


434  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

the  preceding  pages,  will  at  once  perceive  that 
the  object  with  the  perjurers  who  wrote  them, 
was  to  render  their  tales  as  terrific  and  horrible 
as  they  could,  for  the  purpose  of  aggravating  the 
abhorrence,  and  ensuring  the  ruin,  of  the  op- 
pressed and  despoiled  Irish.  They  were  quite 
certain,  that  in  the  prevailing  spirit  of  the  times, 
no  improbability  or  impossibility  would  be  a  bar 
to  their  currency.  This  is  so  plain  and  palpable, 
that  it  requires  only  to  skim  the  surface,  to  per- 
ceive it.  Instead,  therefore,  of  believing,  with 
Leland,  that  a  man  who  coolly  comes  forward, 
and  swears  to  "  lakes  and  rivers  of  blood,"  and 
"  visions  of  spirits  chaunting  hymns,"  acts  under 
the  influence  of  a  disordered  imagination,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  horrors  he  has  witnessed,  we  are 
warranted,  nay  constrained  to  believe,  that  the 
whole  is  the  creation  not  of  a  disordered,  but  a 
corrupted  and  lying  imagination.  Indeed,  we  are 
perfectly  satisfied,  that  there  is  not  one  of  our 
readers,  who  will  allow  his  understanding  free 
operation,  but  will  find  it  impossible  to  believe 
that  those  terror-inspiring  stories  could  have  ever 
proceeded  from  any  other  source  than  the  prince 
of  darkness,  the  father  of  lies. 

We  feel  that  confidence  which  truth  and  a  good 
cause  inspire,  that  we  have  convinced  every  can- 
did reader,  that  the  ground  we  have  taken  is  per- 
fectly sound  and  unassailable ;  and  therefore  we 
might  here  dismiss  this  branch  of  our  subject : 
but  we  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  add  one 


* 


V 

-Si 


A    COGENT    PACT.  435 

further  proof  of  the  magnitude  of  the  errors  that 
have  prevailed  on  the  subject  of  the  universality 
of  the  insurrection.  This  proof  rests  on  autho- 
rity which  the  enemies  of  Ireland  will  not  dare 
dispute. 

Sir  William  Petty  states,  that  before  the  insur- 
rection there  were  3,000  estated  Roman  Catholics 
in  Ireland  ;  and  that,  by  judicial  investigations  in 
the  court  of  claims,  held  in  1663,  it  appeared  that 
there  were  not  more  than  400  of  them*  engaged^ 
in  the  glorious  but  unfortunate  struggteToTlrish 
liberty,  which,  even  by  the  friends  and  partisans 
of  the  English  revolution  in  1688,  the  American 
in  1776,  and  the  French  in  1789,  is  so  very  erro- 
neously and  inconsistently  styled  a  rebellion.! 
And  let  it  be  observed,  that,  notwithstanding  the 
very  small  proportion  of  the  estated  Catholics 
who  were  implicated  in  the  insurrection,  we 
have  established  the  fact,  that  every  effort  had 
been  used  by  the  lords  justices  to  goad  the  whole 
nation  into  resistance,  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
fiscating the  ten  millions  of  acres  of  the  soil, 
which  they  and  their  friends  in  England  had 
already  devoured  in  imagination. 

*  "  The  number  of  landed  Papists,  or  freeholders,  before  the 
wars,  was  about  3,000,  whereof,  as  appears  by  800  judgments 
of  the  court  of  claims,  which  sat  anno  1663,  upon  the  inno- 
cence and  effects  of  the  Irish,  there  ivere  not  above  one-seventh 
part,  or  400,  guilty  of  the  rebellion"™1 

\  See  the  reflections  on  this  topic,  supra,  page  92. 


491 


Petty,  23. 


436  VINDIC03    HIBERNICJL. 

We  shall  now  dismiss  Temple,  with  a  few  con- 
cluding remarks.  We  have  asserted  that  he  was 
a  cheat  and  an  impostor.  We  proceed  to  the 
proof. 

I.  He  who  swears  positively  to  that  for  which 
he  has  not  the  evidence  of  his  senses ;  in  other 
words,  to  what  he  has  on  the  information  of 
others ;  or  to  things  contrary  to  the  known  laws 
of  nature ;  is,  in  the  most  unqualified  sense,  an 
abandoned  perjurer. 

II.  An  historian  who  rests  his  narrative  on 
manifest  perjuries,  is  a  cheat  and  an  impostor, 
unworthy  of  credit. 

III.  The  mass  of  the  depositions  on  which 
Temple  relies  to  support  his  history,  are  mere 
hearsay,    and   many   of  them   contrary  to   the 
known  and  immutable  laws  of  nature  ;  and,  con- 
sequently, the  witnesses  were  a  host  of  absolute 
perjurers. 

IV.  Therefore  Temple  was  a  cheat  and  an 
impostor.     Q.  E.  D. 


(     437      ) 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Barbarous  system  of  warfare  pursued  by  the  Irish 
government.  Indiscriminate  murder  and  mas- 
sacre of  the  Irish,  men,  women,  and  children. 
St.  Leger,  Monroe,  Coote,  Hamilton,  Grenville, 
Ireton,  and  Cromwell,  bathed  in  blood.  Five 
days'  butchery  in  Drogheda.  Detestable  hypo- 
crisy of  Cromwell.  A  medal  and  gold  chain 
awarded  to  a  noyadist.  Extermination  of  man 
and  beast,  for  twenty-eight  miles! !! 

u  Thou  hypocrite !  Cast  out  first  the  beam  that  is  in  thine 
own  eye,  and  then  thou  shaft  see  clearly  to  pull  out  the  mote 
that  is  in  thy  brother's  eye."492 

WE  have  now  thoroughly  exposed  the  abo- 
minable legends,  respecting  the  pretended  Irish 
massacre,  that  have  so  long  passed  current  with 
the  world.  They  owe  their  origin  to  one  of 
the 'most  despicable  of  the  scribblers  who  have 
surreptiously  gained  a  rank  among  the  honour- 
able class  of  historians ;  but  have  been  since  un- 
worthily bolstered  up  by  names  of  the  highest 
celebrity.  We  trust  we  have  succeeded  in  de- 
monstrating that  the  terrific  story  rests  wholly 

492  Luke  vi.  42. 


438  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

on  falsehood  and  perjury  of  the  very  grossest 
kind. 

We  proceed  to  examine  the  system  of  warfare 
pursued  by  the  Irish  government ;  and  to  ascer- 
tain with  what  propriety  or  justice  it  could  com- 
plain of  murder  and  massacre,  had  the  insur- 
gents been  really  guilty  of  the  crimes  alleged 
against  them.  We  pledge  ourselves  to  prove, 
that  a  more  murderous  system  of  warfare  never 
prevailed,  in  any  age  or  any  country ;  that  many 
of  their  commanders  were  as  merciless^  and  as 
bloodthirsty  as  Attila  or  Genghis  Khan ;  and  that 
some  of  the  scenes  of  slaughter  were  so  horrible, 
particularly,  as  will  appear  in  the  sequel,  at  Cash- 
el,  Drogheda,  and  Wexford,  that  they  never  were 
and  never  could  be  exceeded,  and  have  been 
rarely  equalled. 

In  the  long  catalogue  of  human  follies,  there 
is  none  more  unaccountable,  more  ludicrous,  or 
more  universal,  than  that  of  censuring  in  others 
those  vices  and  crimes  to  which  we  are  ourselves 
most  prone.  Who  has  not  heard  elaborate  de- 
clamations against  intemperance,  from  drunkards; 
against  lust,  from  debauchees ;  against  meanness 
and  avarice,  from  misers  ?  There  is  not  a  nation 
in  the  world,  that  has  not  a  variety  of  terse  pas- 
sages on  this  extraordinary  propensity. 

"  Quis  tulerit  Gracchos  de  seditione  querentes  ? 
Quis  cesium  terris  non  misceat,  et  mare  ccelo, 
Si  fur  displiceat  Verri,  homicida  Miloni, 


HORRIBLE    SYSTEM   OF   WARFARE.  439 

Clddius  accuse!  msechos,  Catilina  Cethegum  j 
In  tabulam  Syllae  si  dicant  discipuli  tres  ?"#493 

The  era  embraced  in  our  discussions  affords  a 
most  striking  illustration  of  this  view  of  human 
nature.  While  the 

"  Starry  welkin  has  rung" 

with  the  hoarse  din  of  horrible  massacres  said 
to  have  been  perpetrated  by  the  Irish,  it  will 
appear,  as  clear  as  the  noon-day  sun,  that  the 
Irish  rulers,  in  giving  these  statements,  were 
drawing  their  own  picture:  and  that  the  poet's 

"  Mutato  nomine  de  te  fabula  narratur,"f 

was  never  more  appropriate  than  to  those  rulers 
and  their  agents. 

The  leading  features  of  the  warfare  carried  on 
by  the  forces  of  the  Irish  government,  were, 

I.  The  Irish,  unarmed  and  wholly  defenceless, 
were  frequently  massacred  and  drowned,  without 
mercy.  From  this  fate,  neither  priests,  women, 

nor  children,  were  exempted ; 

t 

*  "  All  must  hear,  the  while, 
The  Gracchi  rail  at  faction,  with  a  smile. 
Who  would  not  swear,  by  ev'ry  awful  name, 
If  Milo  murder,  Verres  theft  should  blame  ; 
Clodius  pursue  adulterers  to  the  bar, 
Caius  tax  Catiline  with  civil  war ; 
Or  Sylla's  pupils,  aping  ev'ry  deed, 
Against  his  tables  of  proscription  plead."494 

f  "  Change  but  the  name,  of  thee  the  tale  is  told."195 
493  Juvenal,  II.  25.          494  Gifford,  41.          m  Francis. 


440  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

II.  Men  who  had  been  overcome  in  battle; 
thrown  down  their  arms ;  made  no  further  re- 
sistance ;  and  begged  for  quarter ;  were  butchered 
by  hundreds,  and  sometimes  by  thousands. 

III.  And,  to  crown  ah1,  after  surrender  made, 
and  quarter  promised,  the  faith  pledged  to  the 
Irish  was  often  perfidiously  violated,  and  they 
were  butchered  in  cold  blood. 


It  was  our  intention  to  have  classed  the  various 
facts,  in  support  of  these  several  allegations,  ex- 
actly under  their  respective  heads :  but,  as  many 
of  the  instances  of  atrocity  which  we  have  col- 
lected, exemplify  more  than  one  of  our  posi- 
tions; and  as  others,  though  of  equal  force,  can- 
not properly  be  classed  under  any  of  them,  we 
are  not  able  to  carry  that  plan  fully  into  effect. 
We  shall,  however,  adhere  to  it  as  closely  as 
in  our  power.  But  we  are  convinced,  that  their 
effect  on  the  reader's  mind  will  depend,  not  on 
their  classification,  but  on  their  magnitude,  im- 
portance, and  authenticity.  If,  weighed  in  the 
balance  of  truth,  they  be  found  wanting  in  these 
essential  particulars,  no  accuracy  of  arrangement 
can  save  them  from  condemnation.  But  if -they 
stand  a  scrutiny  on  those  grand  points^  their  de- 
ficiency in  any  of  the  minor  ones  will  not  be 
regarded  as  of  material  consequence. 

In  this  investigation,  we  voluntarily  subject 
ourselves  to  a  disadvantage,  of  which  we  are 


A   NEW   CASE.  441 

persuaded,  the  world  has  hitherto  afforded  no  pre- 
cedent. We  had  provided  a  large  body  of  authen- 
tic testimony,  from  Clanrickarde,  Castlehaven, 
Walsh,  Curry,  and  other  writers  on  the  Irish  side 
of  the  question,  of  which  we  proposed  to  avail 
ourselves.  But,  being  determined  to  remove  all 
possible  ground  for  cavil,  we  have  laid  the  whole 
aside ;  and  shall  rely  solely  on  two  species  of 
authorities,  which  must  overwhelm  all  opposition, 
and  settle  this  question  eternally.  The  first  is, 
the  despatches  and  documents  of  the  sanguinary 
ruffians  who  perpetrated  the  murders ;  and  the 
second,  the  statements  of  the  Anglo-Hibernian 
historians. 

We  thus  place  ourselves  in  the  predicament  of 
a  man  who  has  a  process  at  law,  and  has  prepared 
ample  documents  to  establish  his  claims  ;  but, 
finding  his  antagonist's  documents  so  strong  and 
so  powerful  against  their  owner,  as  to  render  his 
own  unnecessary,  he  throws  them  into  the  fire : 
and,  so  far  as  respects  the  contents  of  this  chapter, 
one  of  the  most  important  in  our  work,  we  care 
not  if  every  page,  written  in  defence  of  the  Irish, 
were  committed  to  the  flames. 

Should  we,  to  use  the  legal  phraseology,  make 
out  our  case  under  these  circumstances,  as  we 
trust  we  sfiall,  it  will  afford  the  strongest  proof 
that  can  be  desired  or  conceived,  of  the  intrinsic 
goodness  of  the  cause,  and  of  the  extent  of  the 
delusion  that  has  prevailed  on  the  subject.  We  are 
well  aware  of  the  immense  advantages  we  forego 

56 


442  VINDICIJE  HIBERNICJE. 

by  this  course ;  but  we  forego  them  cheerfully, 
and  have  no  more  doubt  of  the  result,  than  we 
have  that  the  sun,  which  is  now  setting  in  the 
western  horizon,  will  rise  again,  resplendent,  in 
all  its  majesty  and  glory,  to  illumine  a  grateful 
and  admiring  world. 

Those,  however,  who  wish  to  peruse  a  list  of 
the  murders  and  massacres  perpetrated  on  the 
Irish,  as  recorded  by  the  writers  of  that  nation, 
are  referred  to  the  Appendix  to  Clarendon's 
"  History  of  the  Irish  Rebellion,"  where  there  is 
a  large  collection  to  be  found,  with  due  detail  of 
time  and  place. 

Resting  wholly  on  plain  matter  of  fact,  we  are 
unfortunately  debarred  of  the  rhetorical  flourishes 
of  "  lakes  and  rivers  of  blood"  "  spirits  chaunting 
hymns"  "ghosts  rising  from  the  rivers,  and 
shrieking  out  revenge"  and  all  those  other  " tales 
of  horror"  and  "suggestions  of  frenzy  "  which 
decorate  the  pages  of  the  long  train  of  historians, 
from  Temple  to  Leland,  who  have  exhausted  the 
powers  of  eloquence  in  embellishing  the  legends 
of  " the  execrable  Irish  rebellion"  But  we  feel 
full  confidence,  that  our 

u  Round  unvarnish'd  tale" 

will  "put  them  down"  in  the  estimation  of  every 
upright  and  candid  reader. 

After  these  preliminary  observations,  we  enter 
on  the  proof  of  the  important  positions  we  have 
laid  down,  respecting  the  system  of  warfare  pur- 


MURDER   AND    MASSACRE.  448 

sued  by  the  forces  of  the  Irish  government.    The 
first  branch  of  No.  I.  is, 

"  The  Irish,  unarmed  and  wholly  defenceless, 
were  frequently  massacred  and  drowned,  without 
mercy."  Behold  our  proofs. 

"  Monroe  advanced  with  his  army  into  the  county  of 
Cavan,  from  whence  he  sent  parties  into  Westmeath  and 
Longford,  which  burnt  the  country,  and  put  to  the  sword  all 
the  country  people  they  met."496 

"  Sir  Charles  Coote,  immediately  after  his  inhuman  execu- 
tions and  promiscuous  murders  of  people  in  Wicklow,  was  made 
governor  of  Dublin."497 

"  As  soon  as  Monroe  had  received  an  account  of  the  cessa- 
tion being  concluded,  he  fell  upon  the  Irish  peasants,  -who  were 
getting  in  their  harvest  in  great  security,  as  no  longer  think- 
ing of  an  enemy,  and  made  a  slaughter  among  them."4®* 

"  They  put  to  the  sword  thirty  Irish,  taken  by  them  in  that 
vessel  at  Padstow."49* 

"  After  a  little  dispute,  the  Parliament's  ship  boarded  the 
Dunkirker,  and  put  all  the  Irish  in  her  to  the  sword,  and  took 
the  rest  prisoners."500 

"  The  garrison  was  sent  away  under  convoy  :  but,  by  the 
disorderliness  of  an  unpaid  soldiery,  they  were  almost  all  of 
them  plundered  and  murdered"501 

"  They  hanged  above  fifty  of  the  Irish,  according  to  the  lord 
general  his  orders."508 

"  Captain  Barrow  took  O'Ronie's  island,  in  Ireland,  and 

put  eighty  there  to  the  sword"503 

Douglas  "  marched  as  through  an  enemy's  country,  his  men 
plundering  and  even  murdering  with  impunity  ,"504 

495  Carte,  I.  495.  497  Idem,  259.  498  Idem,  485. 

499  Whitelock,  202.        so°  Idem,  204.         50»  Warner,  271* 
502  Whitelock,  505.     5W  Idem,  531,     504  Leland,  IV.  307. 


444  VINDICLE  HIBERNICA:. 

Lord  Broghill,  "on  the  21st  August,  1642,  took  the  castle 
of  Ardmore,  in  the  county  of  Waterford,  being  yielded  on 
discretion.  The  women  and  children  were  spared ;  but  the 
men,  a  hundred  and  forty  in  number,  were  put  to  the  sword."* 

"  Sir  Frederick  Hamilton  entered  the  town  of  Sligo,  and 
burnt  it,  freed  many  Protestants,  and  slew  in  the  streets  three 
hundred  Irish:'506 

"  Colonel  Sydenham,  major  Sydenham,  and  other  forces, 
hastened  thither,  put  them  to  flight,  and  pursued  them  almost 
to  Wareham,  slew  twelve,  and  took  sixty  horses  and  a  hun- 
dred and  sixty  prisoners,  whereof  eight  being  natural  Irish, 
seven  of  them  were  immediately  hanged,  and  the  other  spared, 
for  doing  execution  on  his  fellows."507 

"  St.  Leger  was  informed  of  another  robbery  committed  on 
the  cattle  of  his  brother-in-law,  which  he  revenged  in  a  very 
cruel  and  indiscriminate  manner,  killing  near  twenty  people, 
some  of  them  entirely  innocent:  and  when  one  of  his  captains, 
who  had  killed  nine  or  ten  inoffensive  people,  destroyed  their 
houses,  and  drove  away  their  cattle,  was  complained  of  to  him, 
instead  of  punishing,  he  seemed  to  approve  those  outrages."508 

"  Some  Walloons,  whom  the  soldiers  took  for  Irishmen,  were 
put  to  the  sword."509 

*'  Inchiquin  commits  great  destruction,  as  far  as  he  dares 
venture,  about  Dublin  and  Tredah,  by  burning  and  driving 
away  of  their  cattle,  and  hangs  all  he  can  meet  with,  going  to 
the  lord  lieutenant."510 

"  At  the  taking  of  Caermarthen,  by  captain  Swanley,  many 
Irish  rebels  were  thrown  into  the  sea" sn 

The  second  branch  of  No.  I.  is, 

"  From  this  fate  [of  massacre]  priests,  women, 
and  children,  were  not  exempted." 

Our  last  chapter  contained  the  bloodthirsty 
orders  of  the  lords  justices  and  Privy  Council,  to 

505  Rushworth,  V.  515.  506  Ibid.  *"  Idem,  686. 

508  Warner,  155.         *»  Whitelock,  332.         "°  Idem,  410. 
511  Idem,  83. 


MURDER  OF  PRIESTS,  WOMEN,  #J  CHILDREN.     445 

murder  "all  the  males  able  to  bear  arms,  in 
places  where  the  rebels  were  harboured."  We 
now  proceed  to  prove,  that  these  barbarous  or- 
ders were  fully  carried  into  operation. 

Leland  and  Warner  inform  us,  that,  "in  the 
execution  of  these  orders,  the  soldiers  slew  all 
persons  promiscuously."*  They  state  this  on  the 
authority  of  the  lords  justices  themselves,  whose 
testimony  must  be  regarded  as  indisputable. 

But  was  not  this  the  consequence  the  mis- 
creants calculated  on  producing?  Could  they 
have  reasonably  expected  any  other  ?  When  the 
devouring  sword  is  invited  from  its  scabbard  by 
public  authority,  for  the  indiscriminate  slaughter 
of  " men  able  to  bear  arms"  will  not  the  expiring 
and  bed-rid  wretch  be  despatched  to  the  other 
world,  as  a  man  "  able  to  bear  arms  ?"  Will  his 
cassock  protect  the  priest  ?  her  bonnet  or  shawl 
the  pity-inspiring  female  ?  or  its  cradle  and  tender 
cries  the  helpless  infant  ?  No :  he  must  be  a 
mere  novice  in  human  nature  and  human  affairs, 
who  entertains  a  doubt  on  the  subject. 

"  Monroe  put  sixty  men,  EIGHTEEN  WOMEN,  and  two  priests 
to  death,  in  the  Newry."*12 

"  The  lord  president  of  Munster,  St.  Leger,  is  so  cruel  and 
merciless,  that  he  causes  honest  men  and  women  to  be  most  exe- 
crably executed,  and  amongst  the  rest,  caused  a  woman  great 

*  "  The  soldiers,  in  executing  their  orders,  murdered  all  per- 
sons that  came  in  their  way  promiscuously,  NOT  SPARING  THE 

WOMEN,  AND  SOMETIMES  NOT  THE  CHILDREN."513 

512  Leland,  III.  201.       513  Leland,  III.  198.  Warner,  194. 


446  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

•with  child  to  be  ript  up,  and  three  babes  to  be  taken  out  of  her 
womb,  and  then  thrust  every  of  the  babes  with  weapons 
through  their  little  bodies.  This  act  of  the  lord  president  hath 
set  many  in  a  sort  of  desperation."  Lord  of  Upper  Ossory's 
Letter  to  the  Earl  of  Ormond.514 

"  Sir  Theophilus  Jones  had  taken  a  castle,  put  some  men  to 
the  sword,  and  thirteen  priests,  having  with  them  two  thousand 
pounds."515 

"  Their  friars  and  priests  -were  knocked  on  the  %ead  promis- 
cuously with  the  others,  who  were  in  arms."516 

"  Letters  from  Ireland,  that  the  Lord  Inchiquin  relieved 
some  garrisons  of  the  English  in  Tipperary,  entered  Carricke 
and  fortified  a  pass  to  make  good  his  retreat,  blew  open  the 
gate  of  Cullen  by  a  petard,  entered  the  town,  took  two  castles 
by  assault,  and  put  three  hundred  soldiers  to  the  sword,  and 
some  women,  notwithstanding  order  to  the  contrary."517 

"  Sir  William  Parsons  hath  by  late  letters  advised  the  go- 
vernor to  the  burning  of  Corn,  and  to  put  man,  woman,  and 
child  to  the  sword;  and  Sir  Adam  Loftus  hath  written  in  the 
same  strain."51* 

Our  second  position  is, 

II.  "Men  who  had  been  overcome  in  battle; 
thrown  down  their  arms ;  made  no  further  re- 
sistance ;  and  begged  for  quarter ;  were  butchered 

by  hundreds,  and  sometimes  by  thousands." 

+• 

"  A  neighbouring  bog  tempted  the  Irish  foot  to  retire  thi- 
ther for  refuge,  while  their  horse  marched  off  with  very  little 
loss,  and  unmolested.  The  bog  was  too  small  to  afford  them 
protection.  Jones  surrounded  it  with  his  horse,  whilst  his  foot 
entered  it,  and  attacked  the  Irish,  who  threw  down  their  arms, 
and  begged  for  quarter.  Above  three  thousand  of  them  were 
put  to  the  sword"519 

514  Carte,  III.  51.  515  Whitelock,  502. 

516  Idem,  412.  517  Idem,  296. 

518  Ormond,  II.  35O.  519  Carte,  II.  5. 


NO    QUARTER  TO   IRISHMEN  !  447 

"They  defeated  and  pursued  them  with  great  slaughter, 
granting  quarters  to  none  but  officers.  About  two  thousand 
fell  by  the  weapons  of  an  enemy  transported  by  zeal  and  re- 
sentment, about  Jive  hundred  plunged  into  lake  Erne,  and  but 
one  of  all  the  multitude  escaped."530 

"As  no  quarter  was  given,  except  to  colonel  Richard  Butler, 
son  to  the  lord  Ikerin  (who  was  the  last  man  of  the  Irish 
army  that  retired)  few  prisoners  were  made"*21 

"  The  left,  commanded  by  Mac-Allisdrum,  consisting  of 
brave  northern  Irish,  stood  their  ground;  but  were  at  last 
forced  to  yield  to  the  conquerors ;  their  commander  giving  up 
his  sword  to  colonel  Purden.  But  lord  Inchiquin  having,  be- 
fore the  battle,  ordered  that  no  quarter  should  be  given  to  the 
enemy,  the  brave  Mac-Allisdrum  and  most  of  his  men  were 
put  to  the  sword  in  cold  blood"*331 

"  Lieutenant  colonel  Sanderson,  at  the  same  time,  and  Sir 
Francis  Hamilton  coming  in  the  nick  of  time  with  his  troop, 
they  had  all  execution  upon  them  for  five  miles."533 

"  Colonel  Mathews,  at  Dromore,  getting  together  a  body  of 
two  hundred  men,  attacked  five  hundred  of  the  rebels ;  and, 
having  killed  three  hundred  of  them  without  the  loss  of  a  man, 
the  next  day  he  pursued  the  rest,  who  had  hid  themselves  about 
in  the  bushes,  and,  starting  them  like  hares  out  of their  formes , 
killed  a  hundred  and  fifty  more."5'24 

"  The  lord  Inchiquin  took  Pilborne  castle  by  storm,  and 

put  all  in  it  but  eight  to  the  sword."525 

"  His  men  had  the  pursuit  of  the  rebels  seven  miles,  three 
several  ways,  as  long  as  the  day  lasted,  and  in  the  flight  and 
pursuit,  rvere  slam  of  the  rebels  about  four  thousand."536 

"  The  rebels  were  pursued  without  mercy;  and,  in  their 
flight,  spread  a  general  consternation  through  all  their  adhe- 
rents."527 

520  Leland,  IV.  256.       *«  Smith  II.  142.       522  Idem,  162. 
523  Rushworth,  VI.  239.  s24  Warner,  113. 

525  Whitelock,  225.  52fi  Idem,  283. 

527  Leland,  III.  201. 


448  VINDICLZE  HIBERNICJE. 

"  In  the  battle,  and  a  bloody  pursuit  of  three  miles ,  7,000  of 
the  Irish  were  slain.  The  unrelenting  fury  of  the  victors 
appeared  in  the  number  of  their  prisoners,  which  amounted  only 
to  450."528 

Our  third  position  is, 

III.  "After  surrender  made,  and  quarter  pro- 
mised, the  faith  pledged  to  the  Irish  was  perfi- 
diously violated,  and  they  were  butchered  in  cold 
Wood."* 

"  The  army,  I  am  sure,  was  not  eight  thousand  effective 
men ;  and  of  them  it  is  certain  there  were  not  above  six  hun- 
dred killed ;  and  the  most  of  them  th^t  "were  killed  were  but- 
chered after  they  had  laid  doivn  their  arms,  and  had  been  almost 
an  hour  prisoners,  and  divers  of  them  murdered  after  they  were 
brought  within  the  works  of  Dublin ,"529 

The  bishop  of  Clogher  "  having  detached  colonel  Swiney 
with  a  strong  party,  to  make  an  attempt  upon  Castledoe,  in 
the  county  Donegal,  he  ventured,  contrary  to  the  advice  of 
the  most  experienced  officers,  with  3,000  men,  to  fight  Sir 
Charles  Coote,  with  near  double  his  number,  at  Letterkenny. 
Major  general  O'Cahan,  many  of  his  principal  officers,'  and 
fifteen  hundred  common  soldiers,  were  killed  on  the  spot ;  and 
the  colonels  Henry' Roe,  and  Phelim  M^Tuol  CfNeile^  Hugh 
Macguire,  Hugh  Mac-Mahon,  and  others,  slain  after  quarter 
given."550 

We  cannot  allow  ourselves  to  doubt,  for  a 
moment,  that  we  have  fully  established  our  posi- 
tions on  the  most  impregnable  ground.  Limiting 

*  A  most  striking  instance,  in  proof  of  this  accusation,  is 
afforded  by  the  slaughter  at  Drogheda ;  of  which  an  account 
will  be  found  at  the  close  of  this  chapter. 

528  Leland,  IV.  342.  «»  Ormond,  II.  396. 

530  Carte,  11.113. 


MASSACRE.  449 

ourselves,  as  we  have  done,  to  the  accounts  of 
the  perpetrators  of  the  murders,  and  their  histo- 
rians, it  is  matter  of  astonishment,  that  we  have 
been  able  to  adduce  such  strong  evidence.  But 
it  is  a  peculiar  feature  in  this  history,  that  the 
criminals  narrate  their  crimes,  with  as  little  cere- 
mony as  if  they  claimed  glory  from  them.  A  few 
circumstances,  of  peculiar  atrocity,  which  add 
strong  corrobo ration  to  the  testimony,  are  re- 
served for  the  close  of  this  chapter. 

The  pretences  on  which  the  Irish  were  slaugh- 
tered, were,  in  many  instances,  of  the  most  frivo- 
lous and  contemptible  character :  but  it  is  a  trite 
observation,  that  those  who  are  wicked  enough 
to  perpetrate  crimes,  are  never  without  a  plea  to 
justify,  or  at  least  to  palliate,  their  guilt.  Sir  S. 
Harcourt  besieged  a  castle  in  the  vicinity  of  Dub- 
lin, where,  venturing  too  near,  he  was  shot.  The 
barbarian  besiegers,  when  they  took  the  castle, 
to"  revenge  the  death  of  their  general,  slaughtered 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  it  contained.* 

<r 

*  "  Sir  S.  Harcourt  was  sent  out  with  a  small  party,  in  or- 
der to  dislodge  them.  But  being  obliged  to  send  back  for  some 
battering  cannon,  whilst  he  waited  for  these,  and  was  giving 
his  soldiers  some  orders,  one  of  the  rebels  perceiving  him, 
discharged  1m  piece  at  him,  and  gave  him  a  mortal  wound ; 
of  which  he  died -the  next  day,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  service 
.and  the  great  grief  of  the  Englishi  His  men,  who  loved  him 
greatly,  were  so  enraged  at  the  cowardly  manner  in  which  he 
was  killed,  that  when  the  cannon  came  up,  and  had  made  a 

57 


150  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

Warner  relates  this  atrocious  act,  not  merely 
without  censure,  but  with  "  apparent"  justifica- 
tion, or  at  least  extenuation.  He  says,  "the 
soldiers  were  so  enraged  at  the  cowardly  manner 
in  which  he  was  killed,  that  they  put  all  within 
to  the  sword."  This  was  probably  the  pretext  the 
murderers  assigned  at  the  time,  and  which  the 
doctor  copied  without  reflection.  It  would  ap- 
pear that  the  reverend  historian  supposed  there 
was  some  ceremony  necessary  to  be  observed  by 
the  garrison  of  a  besieged  castle,  before  they 
shot  at  their  enemies.  Perhaps  he  thought  that 
they  ought  to  have  sent  a  herald  to  Harcourt,  to 
warn  him  to  beware  of  the  bullet.  This  is  sheer 
nonsense.  Who  would  dare  to  censure  for  cow- 
ardice the  man  who  shot  general  Wolfe  or  gene- 
ral Montgomery,  at  Quebec  ;  general  Mercer,  at 
Princeton  ;  general  Ross,  at  Baltimore  ;  or  general 
Packenham,  at  New  Orleans  ?  In  a  word,  lives 
there  a  man  absurd  enough  to  aver,  that  there  is 
any  cowardice  in  sending  a  whizzing  bullet  to 
salute  a  besieging  enemy,  who  ventures  within 
reach  of  a  shot  ? 

That  "straws  show  which  way  the  wind  blows," 
is  an  adage  of  more  sound  sense  than  elegance. 
An  occurrence  which  Ludlow  narrates,  with  great 
naivete,  affords  a  strong  confirmation  of  the  va- 

breach  sufficient  for  them  to  take  the  castle  by  storm,  they  put 
all  within  to  the  sword,   without  sparing  man,  woman,  or 


Warner,  183. 


SLAUGHTER.  451 

rious  proofs  we  have  already  adduced  of  the 
murderous  spirit  by  which  the  forces  of  the  Irish 
government  were  actuated.  It  evinces,  that  no 
raging  bloodhounds  were  ever  more  ravenous 
after  their  prey,  than  they  were  for  the  slaughter 
of  the  devoted  Irish. 

A  few  wretched  fugitives,  who  had  escaped 
from  their  enemies,  had  taken  refuge  in  a  cave, 
and  were  discovered  by  Ludlow's  army,  on  his 
march.  Thirsting  for  their  lives,  he  spent  nearly 
two  days  in  the  effort  to  smother  them  by  smoke; 
but  his  endeavours  failed  of  success.  At  length, 
some  of  his  soldiers  forced  their  way  into  the 
cave,  where  they  found  about  twenty  defenceless 
wretches,  whose  forlorn  state  would  have  almost 
excited  the  pity  of  a  band  of  ruthless  Creeks  or 
Cherokees :  but  humanity  or  pity  for  the  Irish 
formed  no  part  of  the  system  then  pursued.  Fif- 
teen of  them  were  butchered  in  the  cave ;  and 
four  or  five  brought  out  alive,  who  probably 
shared  a  similar  fate,  although  the  writer  is  silent 
as  to  the  issue,* 

*  "  From  hence  I  went  to  visit  the  garrison  of  Dundalk,  and 
bein^  upon  my  return,  I  found  a  party  of  the  enemy  retired 
within  a  hollow  rock,  which  was  discovered  by  one  of  ours, 
who  saw  five  or  six  of  them  standing  before  a  narrow  passage 
at  the  mouth  of  the  cave.  The  rock  was  so  thick,  that  we 
thought  it  impossible  to  dig  it  down  upon  them,  and  therefore 
resolved  to  try  to  reduce  them  by  smoak.  After  some  of  our 
men  had  spent  most  part  of  the  day  in  endeavouring  to  smo* 
t/ier  those  within,  by  fire  placed  at  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  they 
withdrew  the  fire ;  and  the  next  morning,  supposing  the  Irish 


452  VINDICLE   HIBERNICJE. 

This  single  fact,  narrated  by  the  master  butcher 
himself,  would,  if  it  stood  alone,  be  sufficient  to 
establish  the  infernal  spirit  with  which  the  armies 
of  the  government  were  actuated.  It  is  easy  to 
conceive,  that  those  whose  thirst  of  blood  induced 
them  to  arrest  a  considerable  army  hi  its  march, 
and  spend  two  days,  in  the  hope  of  glutting  their 

to  be  made  incapable  of  resistance  by  the  smoak,  some  of  them 
tvith  a  candle  before  them  crawled  into  the  rock.  One  of  the 
enemy,  who  lay  in  the  middle  of  the  entrance,  fired  his  pistol, 
and  shot  the  first  of  our  men  in  the  head,  by  whose  loss  we 
found  that  the  smoak  had  not  taken  the  designed  effect.  But 
seeing  no  other  way  to  reduce  them,  I  caused  the  trial  to  be 
repeated,  and  upon  examination  found  that  though  a  great 
smoak  went  into  the  cavity  of  the  rock,  yet  it  came  out  again 
at  other  crevices ;  upon  which  /  ordered  those  places  to  be 
closely  stopped,  and  another  smother  made.  About  an  hour 
and  an  half  after  this,  one  of  them  was  heard  to  groan  very 
strongly,  and  afterwards  more  weakly,  whereby  we  presumed 
that  the  work  was  done ;  yet  the  fire  was  continued  till  about 
midnight,  and  then  taken  away,  that  the  place  might  be  cool 
enough  for  ours  to  enter  the  next  morning.  At  which  time 
some  went  in  armed  with  back,  breast,  and  head-piece,  to  pre- 
vent such  another  accident  as  fell  out  at  their  first  attempt  j 
but  they  had  not  gone  above  six  yards  before  they  found  the 
man  that  had  been  heard  to  groan,  who  was  the  same  that  had 
killed  one  of  our  men  with  his  pistol,  and  who,  resolving  not 
to  quit  his  post,  had  been,  upon  stopping  the  holes  of  the  rock, 
choaked  by  the  smoak.  Our  soldiers  put  a  rope  about  his 
neck  and  drew  him  out.  The  passage  being  cleared,  they  en- 
tered, and  having  put  about  fifteen  to  the  sword,  brought  four 
or  five  out  alive,  with  the  priest's  robes,  a  crucifix,  chalice,  and 
other  furniture  of  that  kind.  Those  within  preserved  them- 
selves by  laying  their  heads  close  to  a  water  that  ran  through 
the  rock."532 

532  Ludlow,  I.  422. 


NOBLE    RETALIATION.  453 

rage  with  a  few  human  victims  who  had  sought 
security  in  a  cavern,  would  flesh  their  swords 
indiscriminately  in  all  they  met  in  human  form, 
male  or  female,  old  or  young,  bearing  the  hated 
Irish  name.  This  very  rational  conclusion  is  fully 
established  by  the  mass  of  revolting  facts  con- 
tained in  the  present  chapter. 

A  circumstance  which  occurred  in  consequence 
of  the  murderous  ordinance  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment* to  give  no  quarter  to  Irish  prisoners, 
evinces  such  transcendent  injustice  and  folly,  that 
it  deserves  to  be  put  on  record,  to  display  the 
temper  of  the  times,  and  to  prove  that  the  slaugh- 
ter of  the  Irish  was  regarded  as  perfectly  innocent. 

The  army  of  the  Parliament  had  taken  a  num- 
ber of  prisoners,  among  whom  were  thirteen 
Irishmen,  who,  in  pursuance  of  the  above  ordi- 
nance, were  immediately  executed.  Prince  Ru- 
pert, bold,  brave,  and  determined,  took  measures 
to  ascertain  the  fact ;  and,  as  soon  as  all  doubt 
of  it  was  removed,  singled  out  an  equal  number 
of  prisoners  belonging  to  the  enemy,  and,  as 
right  and  justice  required,  in  order  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  this  murderous  system,  retaliated  on 
them  the  cruelty  of  which  their  officers  had  set 
such  a  terrible  example. 

It  is  incredible  what  an  outcry  this  laudable, 
because  necessary,  measure  of  severity  excited. 
Had  the  prince  hanged  these  men  in  retaliation 

*  Supra,  380. 


454  VIJTBICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

V 

for  the  slaughter  of  an  equal  number  of  cats  or 
dogs,  his  cruelty  and  injustice  could  not  have' 
been  more  severely  execrated  than  it  was  by  the 
Parliament,  whose  army  was  with  difficulty  pre- 
vented from  butchering  their  English  prisoners ; 
as  if  they  had  not  been  themselves  the  original 
aggressors.*  The  carnage  of  the  Irish,  being 
sanctioned  by  the  ordinance  of  Parliament,  they 
regarded  as  lawful  and  innocent :  but  the  retali- 
atory execution  of  their  associates  was,  forsooth, 
abominable  murder. 

*  "  To  the  worthy  and  honoured  William  Lenthal,  Esqr. 
Speaker  of  the  Honourable  House  of  Commons. 

"  Right  Honourable, 

11  According  to  the  ordinance  of  Parliament  in  that  behalf, 
we  caused  some  Irish  rebels,  to  the  number  of  thirteen,  to  be 
put  to  death ;  and  since  prince  Rupert's  coming  into  these 
parts,  it  happened  that  some  of  our  men  were  taken  by  some  of 
his  commanders ;  and,  as  is  verified  to  us,  after  quarter  given 
them,  were,  by  the  prince's  command,  executed ;  which  we 
hearing  of,  sent  a  trumpet  to  know  the  truth  of  the  report,  and 
the  cause  why  they  so  suffered,  by  whom  he  returned  us  the 
letter  inclosed  for  answer.  The  death  of  these  soldiers  being 
known  in  our  several  garrisons,  hath  so  incensed  the  soldiery, 
that  they  vow  revenge,  and  we  found  it  difficult  to  prevent 
their  violent  falling  upon  the  prisoners  in  our  custody  ;  where- 
of we  thought  good  to  certify  this  honourable  house,  and  hum- 
bly pray  your  advice  how  we  shall  prevent  the  acting  the  like, 
cruelty  upon  our  soldiers  for  the  future. 

JOHN  MACKWORTH,  ROBERT  OLIVE, 

ANDREW  LLOYD,  THOMAS  HART, 

SAMUEL  MOORE,  LEIGH  OWEN. 
ROBERT  CHARLTON, 

Salop,  March  24,  1644."533 

533  Parliamentary  History,  XIII.  445, 


RETALIATION.  455 

Prince  Rupert  was  made  of  too  "  stern  stuff,'* 
to  be  terrified  out  of  his  manly  purpose.  He 
announced  his  determination  to  pursue  the  sys- 
tem of  lex  talionis,  and  to  murder  man  for  man.* 
There  do  not  appear  any  data  whereon  to  ground 
an  opinion  of  the  ultimate  issue  of  this  sanguinary 
rivalry :  but  it  is  more  than  probable,  that  the 
energy  and  spirit  of  the  prince  stayed  the  pro- 
gress of  the  devouring  sword,  and  rescued  many 
an  unfortunate  Irishman  from  the  horrible  pro- 
scription of  their  enemies.  Such  a  system,  pur- 
sued steadily,  as  it  ought  to  have  been,  by  general 
Washington,  would  have  snatched  thousands  of 

* Extracts  from  a  letter  of  Prince  Rupert  to  the  Earl  of  Essex. 

"  Those  soldiers  of  mine,  that  were  barbarously  murdered 
in  cold  blood,  after  quarter  given  them  at  Shrewsbury,  were 
such  as,  during  the  time  they  were  in  Ireland,  served  his  ma- 
jesty stoutly,  constantly,  and  faithfully,  against  the  rebels  of 
that  kingdom ;  and,  after  the  cessation  there,  were,  by  his  ma- 
jesty's command,  transported  to  serve  him  in  this,  where  they 
honestly  performed  the  duty  of  soldiers."534 

"  If  the  same  course  shall  be  held,  and  any  prisoners  un- 
der my  command  shall  be  taken,  executed  and  murdered  hi 
cold  blood,  under  what  senseless  and  unjust  pretence  whatso- 
ever ;  for  every  officer  and  soldier,  so  causelessly  and  barba- 
rously murdered,  I  will  cause  so  many -of  the  prisoners  re- 
maining in  my  power  to  be  put  to  death  in  the  same  manner : 
and  I  do  not  in  the  least  doubt  but  the  blood  of  those  misera- 
ble men,  who  shall  so  suffer  by  my  order,  as  well  as  those  who 
shall  be  so  butchered  by  that  ordinance  your  lordship  men- 
tions, shall  be  required  at  their  hands,  who  by  their  cruel  ex- 
amples impose  a  necessity  upon  other  men  to  observe  the  rules 
they  lay  down."435 

534  Parliamentary  History,  XIII.  455.  *35  Idem,  457. 


456  VINDIC02    HIBERNICJE. 

brave  and  noble  victims  from  the  horrors  of  the 
Jersey  prison-ship.  Any  other  system  sacrifices 
our  best  friends  for  our  worst  enemies ;  than 
which  a  more  miserable  policy  cannot  be  con- 
ceived. 

A  murderous  ruffian,  commander  of  one  of  the 
vessels  belonging  to  the  English  Parliament,  took 
a  vessel  with  a  number  of  Irish  soldiers  on  board, 
who  were  not  only  not  insurgents,  but  had  served 
under  the  duke  of  Ormond  against  them,  and, 
after  the  cessation  of  hostilities  in  Ireland,  were 
going  to  England,  to  be  incorporated  in  the  royal 
army.  In  pursuance  of  the  ordinance  for  giving 
no  quarter  to  Irish  prisoners,  he  tied  seventy  of 
them  back  to  back,  and  threw  them  into  the  sea. 
For  this  cruel  act,  and  other  congenial  exploits, 
the  Parliament  of  England  ordered  him  to  be 
presented  with  a  medal  and  a  gold  chain,  of  the 
value  of  two  hundred  pounds.* 

Barbarous  and  murderous  as  were  the  com- 
manders of  the  forces  against  the  Irish,  in  general, 
there  were  some  of  them  who  far  exceeded  their 
colleagues  in  the  dreadful  trade  of  slaughter.  Of 
these,  St.  Leger,  Monroe,  Inchiquin,  Sir  Richard 

*  "  June  4,  1644.  Ordered,  That  captain  Swanly  have  the 
thanks  of  this  house  returned  unto  him  for  his  faithful  service 
and  valiant  actions,  performed  by  him  for  the  good  of  the  pub- 
lick,  both  at  the  Isle  of  Wight,  Pembrokeshire  and  Caermar- 
thenshire,  and  that  a  chain  of  gold  of  two  hundred  pounds 
price,  with  a  medal  annexed  unto  it,  be  bestowed  upon  him."*36 

536  Journals,  III.  51  r. 


RAPACITY    AND    BARBARITY.  457 

Grenville,  Sir  Charles  Coote,  Tichbourne,  Ireton, 
and  Cromwell,  stand  proudly  pre-eminent,  as 
prime  ministers  of  Satan,  in  the  horrid  work  of 
extermination. 

Grenville  was  naturally  ferocious  and  blood- 
thirsty :  but  his  native  ferocity  was  whetted  by 
avarice  and  rapacity,  which  goaded  him  to  deeds 
of  horror,  of  the  blackest  die.  He  hung  old  and 
bed-ridden  men,  for  not  discovering  wealth  which 
they  did  not  possess  ;  and,  with  equal  barbarity, 
hung  women,  frequently  of  quality,  because  they 
had  not  as  much  money  as  he  had  expected.* 
This  barbarian,  having  been  ordered  to  England, 
pursued  the  same  system  of  rapine  and  murder 
there.f 

*  "  Sir  Richard  Grenville,  upon  the  fame  of  being  a  good 
officer,  was  sent  over  with  a  very  good  troop  of  horse ;  was 
major  of  the  earl  of  Leicester's  own  regiment  of  horse,  and  was 
very  much  esteemed  by  him,  and  the  more  by  the  Parliament, 
for  the  signal  acts  of  cruelty  he  did  every  day  commit  upon  the 
Irish;  which  were  of  so  many  kinds  upon  both  sexes,  young 
and  old,  hanging  old  men  -who  -were  bed-rid,  because  they  would 
not  discover  where  their  money  was,  that  he  believed  they 
had;  and  old  women,  some  of  quality,  after  he  had  plundered 
them,  and  found  less  than  he  expected ;  that  they  can  hardly 
be  believed,  though  notoriously  known  to  be  true."537 

f  "  He  made  one  of  them  hang  all  the  rest ;  which,  to  save 
his  own  life,  he  was  contented  to  do  :  so  strong  his  appetite  to 
those  executions  he  had  been  accustomed  to  in  Ireland,  without 
any  kind  of  commission,  or  pretence  of  authority."53* 

537  Clarendon,  IV.  537.  i38  Idem,  538. 

58 


458  VIND1CIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

A  few  of  the  characteristic  feats  of  St.  Leger,* 
Inchiquin,  Monroe,  and  Coote,  grace  the  fore- 
going pages.  Honourable  mention  remains  to 
be  made  of  Tichbourne,  Ireton,  and  Cromwell, — 
a  bloody  triumvirate,  whose  names  ought  to  be 
held  in  eternal  reprobation  by  Irishmen  and  de- 
scendants of  Irishmen. 

Henry  Tichbourne,  governor  of  Drogheda,  sig- 
nalized for  his  sanguinary  career,  merited  the 
distinction  we  have  accorded  him,  to  be  ranked 
with  the  destroyers,  Ireton  and  Cromwell.  In  a 
familiar  letter  to  his  wife,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
he  communicates  the  information,  that,  finding 
he  could  not  induce  the  Irish  to  hazard  the  for- 
tune of  a  battle,  he  had  concluded  "  they  were  in 
another  sort  to  be  dealt  with ;"  and  accordingly 
the  wretch  sallied  out  "  every  other  morning,  for 
several  weeks"  slaughtering  all  he  met,  without 
mercy  ;  so  that  he  left  "  neither  man  nor  beast 
alive"  for  sixteen  miles  from  the  garrison.f  And 

*  "  If,  in  the  execution  of  martial  law,  he  [St.  Leger]  spared 
neither  sex  nor  age^  his  countrymen  frequently  expressed  a 
generous  indignation  and  horror  at  his  barbarity  ."s39 

f  "  Finding  that  they  did  only  put  themselves  in  arms,  and 
would  no  more  now  than  formerly  forsake  their  strength,  to 
draw  into  equality  of  ground,  notwithstanding  their  advantage 
of  numbers,  I  concluded  they  were  in  another  sort  to  be  dealt 
with ;  and  from  thenceforth,  for  the  most  part,  I  fell  every 
other  morning  into  their  quarters,  and  continued  those  visita- 
tions for  several  weeks  together,  -with  the  slaughter  of  very 
many  of  them^  especially  the  new  plantation  in  the  county  of 

539Leland,  III.  171. 


CARNAGE   FOR    TWENTY-EIGHT  MILES.         459 

one  of  his  coadjutors  in  this  business  of  destruc- 
tion perpetrated  the  same  havoc,  for  twelve  miles 
on  the  other  side  :  thus  filling  the  country  with 
carnage,  for  twenty-eight  miles,  and  "not  leav- 
ing man  nor  beast  alive !"  In  another  part  of 
this  letter,  he  informs  her  of  one  of  his  murder- 
ous expeditions,  in  which  he  says,  "  he  took  no 
account  of  the  slain ;  but  there  was  little  mercy 
shown  in  those  times."5**  What  a  hideous  picture 
of  incarnate  demons  do  these  horrible  facts  pre^ 
sent  to  the  mind's  eye  !  And  what  effrontery 
must  not  Temple  and  his  followers  have  possess- 
ed, when  they  dared  to  raise  such  an  outcry 
against  the  Irish,  for  the  crimes  which  they  them- 
selves perpetrated  ! 

Of  all  the  cases  of  murderous  cruelty  that 
marked  the  career  of  the  government  forces  in 
Ireland,  the  most  atrocious  occurred  at  the  sur- 
render of  Drogheda.  The  history  of  the  Huns, 
Vandals,  Goths,  and  Ostrogoths,  or  of  those 
scourges  of  the  human  race,  the  successors  of 
Mahomet,  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  any  thing 
more  shocking.  In  fact,  it  is  not  in  the  power 
of  man,  were  he  possessed  by  all  the  furies  of  the 

Monaghan,  and  at  the  taking  in  of  Harry  O'Neal's  house,  in 
the  Fews ;  insomuch  that  by  this  course,  and  the  like  acted 
often  by  the  garrison  at  Drogheda,  there  was  neither  man  nor 
beast  to  be  found  in  sixteen  miles,  between  the  two  towns  of 
Drogheda  and  Dundalk,  nor  on  the  other  side  of  Dundalk,  in 
the  county  of  Monaghan,  nearer  than  Carrick  Mac-Cross,  a 
strong  pile,  twelve  miles  distant."5*1 

540  Tichbourne,  186.  «'  Idem,  188, 


460  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

heathen  mythology,  to  exceed  these  frightful 
scenes.  They  may  be  equalled, — but  can  never 
be  surpassed. 

Cromwell  had  besieged  this  town  for  some 
time ;  and  was  finally  admitted,  on  promise  of 
quarter.  The  garrison  consisted  of  the  flower  of 
the  Irish  army,  and  might  have  beaten  him  back, 
had  they  not  been  seduced  by  his  solemn  promise 
of  mercy,  which  was  observed  till  the  whole  had 
laid  down  their  arms.  Then  the  merciless  wretch 
commanded  his  soldiers  to  begin  a  slaughter  of 
the  entire  garrison,  which  slaughter  continued  for 
five  days ! !  with  every  circumstance  of  brutal  and 
sanguinary  violence  that  the  most  cruel  savages 
could  conceive  or  perpetrate.* 

"  No  age  was  spar'd ;  no  sex,  nay  no  degree ; 
Not  infants  in  the  porch  of  life  were  free. 
The  sick,  the  old,  who  could  but  hope  a  day 
Longer  by  Nature's  bounty,  not  let  stay  : 
Virgins  and  widows,  matrons,  pregnant  wives, 
All  died.    'Twas  crime  enough  that  they  had  lives."54* 

This  canting  and  hypocritical  impostor,  in  his 
despatches  to  the  Parliament,  had  the  shameless 

*  "  The  assault  was  given,  and  his  [Cromwell's]  men  twice 
repulsed ;  but  in  the  third  attack,  colonel  Wall  being  unhappi- 
ly killed  at  the  head  of  his  regiment,  his  men  were  so  dismay- 
ed thereby,  as  to  listen,  before  they  had  any  need,  to  the  ene- 
my offering  them  quarter,  admitting  them  upon  those  terms, 
and  thereby  betraying  themselves  and  their  fellow-soldiers  to 
the  slaughter.  All  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  CromtueWs  ar- 
my promised  quarter  to  such  as  would  lay  down  their  arms,  and 

S4S  Ben  Jonson. 


HYPOCRISY    AND    MASSACRE.  461 

impudence  to  ascribe  "  the  glory"  of  this  bloody 
deed  to  God,  "  to  whom  indeed  the  praise  of  this 
mercy  belongs !  !"*  And  such  was  the  delusion 

performed  it  as  long  as  any  place  held  out ;  which  encouraged 
others  to  yield.  But  when  they  had  once  all  in  their  power,  and 
feared  no  hurt  that  could  be  done  them,  Cromwell,  being  told 
by  Jones,  that  he  had  now  all  the  flower  of  the  Irish  army  in  his 
hands,  gav e  orders  that  no  quarter  should  be  given  ;  so  that  his 
soldiers  were  forced,  many  of  them  against  their  -will,  to  kill 
their  prisoners.  The  brave  governor  Sir  A.  Aston,  Sir  Edm. 
Verney,  the  colonels  Warren,  Fleming  and  Byrne,  were  killed 
in  cold  blood;  and  indeed  all  the  officers,  except  some  few  of 
least  consideration,  that  escaped  by  miracle.  The  Marquis  of 
Ormond,  in  his  letters  to  the  king  and  lord  Byron,  says,  *  that 
on  this  occasion  Cromwell  exceeded  himself  and  any  thing  he 
had  ever  heard  of,  in  breach  of  faith  and  bloody  inhumanity  ; 
and  that  the  cruelties  exercised  there,  for  Jive  days  after  the 
town  was  taken,  -would  make  as  many  several  pictures  of  inhu- 
manity, as  are  to  be  found  in  the  book  of  martyrs,  or  in  the  re- 
lation of  Amboyna?  "543 

*  "  Sir,— -It  has  pleased  God  to  bless  our  endeavours  at  Drog- 
heda ;  after  battering,  we  stormed  it.  The  enemy  were  about 
three  thousand  strong  in  the  town.  They  made  a  stout  re- 
sistance, and  near  one  thousand  of  our  men  being  entered,  the 
enemy  forced  them  out  again.  But  God  giving  a  new  courage 
to  our  men,  they  attempted  again,  and  entered,  beating  the 
enemy  from  their  defences.  The  enemy  had  made  three  re- 
trenchments, both  to  the  right  and  left,  where  we  entered,  all 
which  they  were  forced  to  quit :  being  thus  entered,  rue  refu- 
sed them  quarter,  having  the  day  before  summoned  the  town. 
I  believe  we  put  to  the  sword  the  whole  number  of  the  defend- 
ents.  I  do  not  think  thirty  of  the  whole  number  escaped  with 
their  lives  :  those  that  did  are  in  safe  custody,  for  the  Barba- 
does.  Since  that  time  the  enemy  quitted  to  us  Trim  and  Dun- 
dalk ;  in  Trim  they  were  in  such  haste,  that  they  left  their 
guns  behind  them.  This  hath  been  a  marvellous  great  mercy  !  ! 

543  Carte,  II.  84. 


462  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

of  those  times,  that,  in  all  the  churches  in  Lon- 
don, thanks  were  returned  to  the  God  of  mercy, 
for  this  barbarous  slaughter  of  his  creatures  !* 

History  furnishes  no  circumstance  more  dis- 
gusting, revolting,  or  hideous,  than  this  nauseous 
compound  of  base  perfidy,  murderous  cruelty, 
and  abominable  hypocrisy.  Never  was  the  throne 
of  the  Living  God  more  egregiously  insulted,  than 
by  these  impious  offerings  of  thanksgiving :  and 
never  were  the  thunders  of  heaven  more  loudly 
called  for,  than  to  blast  the  Pharisaical  wretches 
who  made  such  a  mockery  of  all  the  calls  and 
duties  of  humanity  and  religion. 

The  enemy  being  not  willing  to  put  an  issue  upon  a  field  bat- 
tle, had  put  into  this  garrison  almost  all  their  prime  soldiers, 
being  about  three  thousand  horse  and  foot,  under  the  command 
of  their  best  officers,  Sir  Arthur  Ashton  being  made  governour. 
They  were  some  seven  or  eight  regiments,  Ormond's  being 
one,  under  the  command  of  Sir  Edmund  Verney.  I  do  not 
believe,  neither  do  I  hear,  that  any  officer  escaped -with  his  life, 
save  only  one  lieutenant,  who,  I  hear,  going  to  the  enemy, 
said,  that  he  was  the  only  man  that  escaped  of  all  the  garri- 
son. The  enemy  were  filled  upon  this  with  much. terror:  and 
truly  I  believe  this  bitterness  will  save  much  effusion  of  blood, 
through  the  goodness  of  God!  !  ! 

"  I  wish  that  all  honest  hearts  may  give  the  glory  of  this  to 
God  alone,  to  'whom  indeed  the  praise  of  this  mercy  belongs, 
for  instruments  they  were  very  inconsiderable,  the  work 

throughout.  O.    CROMWELL."544 

*  "  The  ministers  of  London  acquainted  the  people  with  the 
great  success  of  the  Parliament's  forces  in  Ireland,  and  return- 
ed .thanks  to  God  for  the  same."545 

544  Whitelock,  412.  *45  Ibid.' 


NITS   WILL  BE    LICE.  463 

Some  time  afterwards,  Cromwell  gained  pos- 
session of  Wexford,  by  treachery ;  where  a  car- 
nage was  perpetrated,  not  far  inferior  to  that 
which  had  taken  place  at  Drogheda.* 

There  is  an  important  passage  in  the  preface 
or  introduction  to  Nalson's  Collections,  which  we 
extracted,  and  intended  to  quote,  but  have  mis- 
laid. We  are  therefore  obliged  to  refer  to  it 
from  memory ;  as  the  work  has  been  returned  to 
the  New  York  library,  whence  it  was  procured, 
and  there  is  no  copy  in  this  city.  The  reverend 
author  states,  that  one  of  those  Herodists,  worthy 
disciples  of  the  Idumean,  whose  deeds  are  re- 
corded by  St.  Matthew,  having  been  engaged  in 
the  humane  employment  of  slaughtering  children, 
defended  the  practice,  by  saying  that  "  nits  would 
be  lice."  This  was  an  attempt  to  carry  completely 
into  operation  the  horrible  plan  of  extirpating  the 
whole  race  ;  the  deliberate  adoption  of  which  we 
have  proved,  in  a  preceding  part  of  this  work, 
and  which  was  for  some  time  acted  upon  by  the 
ruling  powers.  For  the  accomplishment  of  this 
grand  object,  the  slaughter  of  the  " lice"  that  is, 
the  full-grown  men  and  women,  was  not  deemed 

*  "  As  soon  as  Cromwell  had  ordered  his  batteries  to  play  on 
a  distant  quarter  of  the  town,  [Wexford]  Strafford  admitted 
his  men  into  the  castle,  from  whence  issuing  suddenly,  and  at- 
tacking the  wall  and  gate  adjoining,  they  were  admitted,  either 
through  the  treachery  of  the  townsmen  or  the  cowardice  of  the 
soldiers,  or  perhaps  both  :  and  the  slaughter  was  almost  as 
great  as  at  Drogheda"** 

546  Warner,  476. 


464  V1NDICLE    HIBERN1CJE. 

sufficient :  the  destruction  of  the  " nits"  or  chil- 
dren, was  necessary,  to  complete  the  magnificent 
scheme  of  a  new  plantation  of  the  kingdom  ! 

Ireton,  apparently  sated  with  slaughter,  gave 
protection  to  the  remnant  of  the  inhabitants  of  a 
certain  barony.  But  "  being  informed  that  they 
had  broken  the  articles,"  he,  without  inquiry, 
issued  orders  to  slaughter  every  "  man,  woman, 
and  child"  it  contained.*  Lord  Broghill,  though 
a  sanguinary  man,  shuddered  at  the  barbarity 
of  these  terrible  orders ;  remonstrated  with  Ire- 
ton  ;  and  at  length,  with  considerable  difficulty, 
prevailed  on  him  to  confine  the  massacre  to  per- 
sons found  in  arms,  or  who  made  resistance.! 
Those  who  consider  the  awe  which  a  ferocious 
army  inspires,  the  reluctance  which,  without  the 
most  grievous  outrage,  the  peasantry  must  have 
felt  to  encounter  the  swords  of  a  victorious  ene- 
my, as  well  as  the  violence  and  rapacity  of  such 

*  "  Soon  after  Ireton  had  the  command  of  the  army,  he  was 
informed  that  a  certain  barony  had  broken  the  articles  in  con- 
sideration of  which  they  had  been  protected.  He  marched 
therefore  against  this  barony,  and  gave  immediate  orders  to  his 
soldiers  to  kill  man,  woman,  and  child:  but  before  these  orders 
were  executed,  lord  Broghill  expostulated  with  him  upon  the 
cruelty  of  such  proceedings."547 

| "  He  was  therefore  humbly  of  opinion,  that  it  would  be  more 
just,  reasonable,  and  honourable,  to  order  the  soldiers  to  kill 
none  but  who  were  found  in  arms  or  made  any  opposition. 
With  these  words,  Ireton  -was  at  last,  though  hardly,  per- 
suaded  to  revoke  his  bloody  commands"*** 

347  Orrery,  I.  32.  548  Idem,  33. 


SACRILEGIOUS    MASSACRE.  465 

an  enemy,  will  be  led  to  believe,  that  the  provo- 
cation was  of  a  similar  character  with  that  which, 
according  to  Phsedrus,  was  given  by  the  lamb, 
drinking  at  the  lower  part  of  the  stream,  to  the 
wolf,  who  was  allaying  his  thirst  above,  and  who 
charged  the  innocent  animal  with  muddying  the 
waters.  The  strong  probability  is,  that  some 
individual  resisted  the  rape  of  his  wife  or  daugh- 
ter, or  the  plunder  of  his  property,  and  that  the 
foiled  ruffians  magnified  the  affair  into  a  viola- 
tion of  the  protection.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  it 
does  not  diminish  our  horror  of  the  merciless 
Ireton,  who  issued  the  murderous  mandate  to 
slaughter  "  man,  woman,  and  child ;"  as  it  must 
be  obvious,  that,  if  there  were  really  a  violation 
of  the  articles,  a  large  portion  of  the  men  were 
probably  wholly  innocent :  and,  at  all  events,  the 
women,  and  more  especially  the  children,  could 
not  have  deserved  the  extermination  from  which 
they  were  so  hardly  rescued. 

To  the  wretched  Irish,  neither  caves,  nor  cas- 
tles, nor  churches,  afforded  any  security.  The 
murderous  spirit  of  their  enemies  pursued  them 
in  every  quarter,  with  as  little  mercy  as  the  tiger 
displays  towards  the  bleating  lamb. 

Three  thousand  men,  women,  and  children,  of 
all  ranks  and  ages,  took  refuge  in  the  cathedral 
of  Cashel,  hoping  the  temple  of  the  Living  God 
would  afford  them  a  sanctuary  from  the  butche- 
ries that  were  laying  the  whole  country  desolate. 
The  barbarian  Ireton  forced  the  gates  of  the 

59 


466  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

church,  and  let  loose  his  blood-hounds  among 
them,  who  soon  convinced  them  how  vain  was 
their  reliance  on  the  temple  or  the  altar  of  God. 
They  were  slaughtered,  without  discrimination.* 
Neither  rank,  dignity,  nor  character,  saved  the 
nobleman,  the  bishop,  or  the  priest ;  nor  decrepi- 
tude, nor  his  hoary  head,  the  venerable  sage, 
bending  down  into  the  grave ;  nor  her  charms, 
the  virgin ;  nor  her  virtues,  the  respectable  ma- 
tron ;  nor  its  helplessness,  the  smiling  infant. 
Butchery  was  the  order  of  the  day, — and  all 
shared  the  common  fate. 

"  Behold  the  furious  and  unpitying  soldier, 
Pulling  his  reeking  dagger  from  the  bosoms 
Of  gasping  wretches.     Death  in  ev'ry  quarter, 
With  all  that  sad  disorder  can  produce, 
To  make  a  spectacle  of  horror. 

"  Distracted  mpthers 

Kneeling  before  their  feet,  and  begging  pity  ; 
Their  naked,  mangled  breasts  besmeared  with  blood, 
And  ev'n  the  milk,  with  which  their  fondled  babes 
Softly  they  hush'd,  'drop  in  anguish  from  them."549 

That  the  leaders  of  the  forces  of  the  govern- 
ment perpetrated  the  most  atrocious  cruelties,  we 
have  fully  proved.  We  shall  now  give  a  few 
strong  facts,  to  satisfy  the  reader,  that  they  glo- 
ried in  their  guilt,  and  regarded  the  extent  of 

*  u  Having  brought  together  an  army,  he  marched  into  the 
county  of  Tipperary,  and  hearing  that  many  priests  and  gen- 
try about  Cashel  had  retired  with  their  goods  into  the  church, 
he  stormed  it,  and  being  entered,  put  three  thousand  of  them 
to  the  sword,  taking  the  priests  even  from  under  the  altar.'1''"0 

549  Otway.  55°  Ludlow,  I.  106. 


A   BLOODY    BREAKFAST.  467 

their  murders  as  constituting  their  merits.  The 
sanguinary  lord  Orrery,  bending  down  into  the 
grave,  being  seventy-six  years  of  age,  in  urging 
the  claims  of  the  earl  of  Barrymore  and  his  two 
sons  on  the  speaker  of  the  English  House  of 
Commons,  appears  to  lay  his  chief  dependence 
for  success  on  the  desolation  they  had  perpetrated. 
The  first,  he  says,  lately  hung  up  "forty-three 
notable  rebels  for  a  breakfast."*  It  is  not  difficult 
to  conceive  what  hideous  havoc  and  carnage  the 
constant  repetition  of  these  breakfasts,  and  of 
dinners  and  suppers  of  the  same  character,  must 
have  produced. 

The  merit  of  the  two  sons  of  lord  Orrery  far 
transcended  that  of  lord  Barrymore  ;  as  they,  in 
the  course  of  a  few  months,  destroyed  above 
three  thousand  of  the  Irish.f  This  afforded  them 
a  sure  claim  to  the  favour  and  protection  of  go- 
vernment. 

'"''•  -»'<M, 

*  "  The  earl  of  Barrymore  "  hath  nothing  but  what  he  fight- 
eth  with  the  rebels  for,  and  getteth  by  his  sword;  he  having 
lately  hanged  forty-three  notable  rebels  for  a  breakfast"**1 

f  "  I  do  affirm,  and  will  make  good  this  undeniable  truth, 
that  my  two  sons,  Kynalmeaky  and  Broghill,  with  those  forces 
that  I  have  raised  and  satisfied,  and  they  command,  have  been 
the  destruction  of  above  three  thousand  rebels,  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  insurrection"55'*  This  letter  is  dated  August  25, 
1642  :  and  the  insurrection  had  not  spread  into  Munster  until 
December,  1641.  This  affords  a  clew  towards  forming  an 
estimate  of  the  horrible  carnage  perpetrated  throughout  the 
kingdom  on  the  wretched  Irish. 

551  Orrery,  I.  12.  "*  Idem,  15. 


468  VINDICLK  HIBEHNIC-E. 

Sir  William  Cole,  with  one  regiment  of  toot,  of 
five  hundred  men,  and  one  troop  of  horse,  is  re- 
corded by  Borlase  to  have  slain  2,417  swordsmen, 
in  various  skirmishes  and  battles,  and  to  have 
"  starved  and  famished  of  the  -vulgar  sort."  whose 
property  they  had  previously  plundered,  no  less 
than  "  7,000  persons;"553  and  thus,  adds  he  "  the 
English  in  ah1  parts  fought,  so  as  indeed  the  rebels 
lost,  in  the  general,  many  men,  and  much  of  their 
substance."  That  they  lost  "  much  of  their  sub- 
stance," and  that  their  enemies  were  as  justly 
celebrated  for  their  skill  in  plunder  as  for  their 
thirst  of  blood,  is  beyond  doubt.  The  following 
circumstance  will  shed  additional  light  on  this 
subject. 

Sir  Richard  Cox,  in  the  subsequent  war  be- 
tween James  II.  and  William,  boasted  that  he  had, 
in  the  single  county  of  Cork,  killed  and  hanged 
three  thousand  of  the  Irish  ;*  made  preys  to  the 
amount  of  twelve  thousand  pounds ;  and  divided 

*  "  As  for  the  enemy,  I  used  them  like  nettles,  and  squeezed 
them  (I  mean  their  vagabond  partyes)  soe  hard,  that  they 
could  seldom  sting ;  having,  as  I  believe,  killed  and  hanged 
not  less  than  three  thousand  of  them,  whilst  I  stayed  in  the 
county  of  Cork ;  and  taken  from  them,  in  cattle  and  plunder,  at 
least  to  the  value  of  12,000/.  which  you  will  easily  believe, 
when  you  know  that  I  divided  380/.  between  one  troop  (colonel 
Townsend's)  in  the  beginning  of  August.  After  which  colo- 
nel Beecher  and  the  western  gentlemen  got  a  prey  rvorth  3,OOO/. 
besides  several  other  lesser  preys,  taken  by  small  partyes,  that 
are  not  taken  notice  of.""4 

a53  Borlace,  87.  «M  Sydney  Papers  M.  I.  168. 


HALF   A  MILLION   DESTROYED.  469 

three  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  among  one 
troop.  This,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  is  a  pretty 
fair  specimen  of  the  slaughter  and  rapine  that 
extended  throughout  the  kingdom. 

When  a  view  is  taken  of  the  various  thousands 
which  we  have  gleaned  up  in  the  preceding  pages; 
3,000  in  one  place  ;  7,000  in  another  ;  4,000  in 
another ;  3,000  in  another,  and  so  on  in  succes- 
sion ;  and  when  regard  is  had  to  the  novel  cir- 
cumstance of  our  utterly  excluding  all  the  histo- 
,  ries  on  the  Irish  side  of  the  question,  no  man  can 
doubt,  that  in  this  war  of  extermination,  originally 
founded  on  the  manifest  perjury  of  O'Conally, 
provoked  by  the  most  savage  cruelty,  and  pro- 
tracted by  the  combined  influence  of  devouring 
avarice,  religious  bigotry,  and  the  most  rancor- 
ous national  hostility,  there  were,  as  we  have 
already  stated,  from  Sir  William  Petty,  above 
FIVE  HUNDRED  THOUSAND  OF  THE  IRISH 
"  wasted  by  the  sword,  plague,  famine,  hardship, 
and  banishment,  between  the  23d  October,  1641, 
and  the  same  day,  1652  ;"555  that  Ireland,  during 
that  war,  exhibited  as  dreadful  a  scene  of  rapine 
and  slaughter  as  either  Mexico  or  Peru,  when 
invaded  by  the  Spaniards  ;  and  that  none  of  the 
sanguinary  exploits  of  Cortes  or  Pizarro  could 
exceed,  for  atrocity,  the  deeds  of  Coote,  St.Leger, 
Monroe,  Inchiquin,  Grenville.  Hamilton,  Tich- 
bourne,  Ireton,  and  Cromwell. 

sss  Petty,  18.     Sir  William   states  the  precise  number  of 
504,000. 


470  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

The  horrible  scenes  we  have  depicted  were  not 
confined  to  Ireland.  The  war  was  carried  on,  in 
England  and  Scotland,  with  similar  rapine,  deso- 
lation, and  carnage  on  both  sides,  royalist  and 
republican.  It  is  not  necessary,  nor  would  it  be 
proper,  to  enter  here  into  detail  respecting  the 
affairs  of  the  sister  island.  A  few  instances  will 
be  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose,  merely  to 
display  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  humanity  of  its 
warfare,  and  the  peculiar  propriety  of  the  eternal 
reproaches,  with  which  "  the  welkin  has  rung," 
against  the  barbarity  of  the  Irish. 

Lord  Clarendon,  in  various  parts  of  his  history, 
narrates  the  ruthless  ferocity  that  reigned  in  battle 
and  after  defeat,  when  neither  age  nor  sex  was 
spared.  In  particular,  he  states,  that,  in  the  pur- 
suit of  the  royalists,  after  the  battle  of  Edgehill, 
there  were  about  one  hundred  women  slaughter- 
ed, and  among  them  the  wives  of  some  of  the 
officers.* 

According  to  Burnet,  prisoners  were  slaugh- 
tered in  cold  blood,  and  after  quarter  given ;  and 
the  preachers,  from  the  pulpit,  deprecated  the 
extension  of  mercy  towards  them,  and  denounced 
all  those  who  were  for  moderate  measures.f 

*  "  The  enemy  left  no  manner  of  cruelty  unexercised  that 
day;  and  in  the  pursuit  killed  about  one  hundred  women, 
whereof  some  were  the  wives  of  officers  of  quality  "s* 

\  "  Upon  this  occasion,  many  prisoners  that  had  quarter  giv- 
en them,  -were  murdered  in  cold  blood.  The  preachers  thunder- 

*56  Clarendon,  IV.  639. 


THINE   EYE    SHALL  NOT   PITY  !  47 1 

We  conclude  with  an  account,  from  Rush- 
worth,  of  the  ruthless  and  savage  progress  of 
Montross,  in  Scotland,  anno  1644,  which  may 
stand  a  parallel  with  the  murderous  exploits  of 
Ireton  or  Cromwell.  For  six  weeks,  he  acted 
the  part  of  a  demon  incarnate,  as  far  as  his  power 
extended,  laying  the  whole  country  in  flames, 
and,  in  imitation  of  the  sanguinary  orders  of  the 
lords  justices  of  Ireland,  slaughtering  ah1  the  males 
able  to  carry  arms,  or,  in  other  words,  "fit  for 


The  unceasing  efforts  that  have  been  employed 
to  stifle  the  truth,  and  to  keep  the  world  in  a 
state  of  darkness,  on  the  subject  of  the  barbarous 
carnage  perpetrated  on  the  Irish,  are  incredible. 
They  have  unfortunately  been  but  too  successful. 

ed  in  their  pulpits  against  all  that  were  for  moderate  proceed- 
ings, as  guilty  of  the  blood  that  had  been  shed.  '  Thine  eije 
shall  not  pity,  and  thou  shaft  not  spare  J  were  often  inculcated 
after  every  execution."557 

#  "  Montross  dividing  his  army  into  three  brigades,  ranged 
over  the  whole  country,  and  laid  it  waste  ;  as  many  as  they 
find  in  arms,  going-  to  the  rendezvous,  they  slay,  and  spared  no 
man  Jit  for  war  ;  and  so  destroyed,  or  drove  out  of  the  coun- 
try, or  into  holes  unknown,  all  the  service,  axidjired  the  villa- 
ges and  cottages,  and  drove  away  and  destroyed  all  their  cat- 
tle. These  things  lasted  from  the  13th  of  December  1644,  to 
the  end  of  January  follorving"559 

557  Burnct,  I.  4f).  558  Rushworth,  V.  931. 


472  VINDIClJE    HIBERNIC.K. 

One  instance  displays  such  profligacy,  that  it  only 
requires  to  be  stated,  to  excite  the  indignation  of 
every  honourable  mind. 

The  government  forces  in  Ulster  had  commit- 
ted some  frightful  massacres  on  the  Irish,  of  which 
an  account  was  published  in  London.  The  House 
of  Commons,  which  was  actuated  by  the  most 
rancorous  spirit  of  hostility  towards  the  Irish, 
took  the  alarm.  They  had  the  printers  committed 
to  prison,  without  trial ;  ordered  the  book  to  be 
burned  by  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman ; 
and  directed  the  Stationers'  Company  to  seize  all 
the  copies  that  could  be  found,  which  were  to  be 
committed  to  the  flames.*  Thus  early  began  the 
work  of  deception  ;  thus  early  was  the  veil  thrown 
over  the  enormities  of  which  the  Irish  were  the 
victims ;  and  thus  early  were  the  streams  of  his- 
tory poisoned  by  public  authority. 

*  "  June  8,  1642.  Ordered,  That  the  book,  intituled  '  A 
True  Relation  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Scots  and  English 
Forces  in  the  North  of  Ireland,'  shall  be  burnt  by  the  hands  of 
the  common  hangman,  in  the  New  Palace  yard,  at  Westmin- 
ster :  and  the  master  and  wardens  of  the  Company  of  Station- 
ers are  required  to  seize  all  such  of  these  books  as  are  any 
where  to  be  had,  that  they  may  be  burnt  accordingly. 

"  Resolved,  That  Robert  White  shall  be  forthwith  committed 
prisoner  to  the  King's  Bench  prison^  for  printing  and  publish- 
ing of  a  scandalous  libel,  to  the  dishonour  of  the  Scots  nation ; 
and  he  be  referred  to  the  King's  Bench,  to  be  proceeded  with 
there  according  to  law."559 

559  Journals,  II.  619. 


IRISH   ANTHROPOPHAGI  !  !  !  473 

The  following  extract  from  a  most  virulent 
book,  published  in  London,  anno  1647,  affords 
a  full  display  of  the  infernal  spirit  of  rancour  and 
malice  that  then  prevailed  in  England  against  the 
Irish ;  and  will  serve,  in  some  measure,  to  account 
for  the  butcheries  of  the  St.  Legers,  the  Monroes, 
the  Cootes,  the  Iretons,  and  the  Cromwells,  as 
exhibited  in  the  present  chapter.  It  is  quoted 
in  the  North  American  Review,  Vol.  I.  p.  305. 

"  The  Simple  Cobler  of  Aggavvam  in  America.  Willing  to  help 
'mend  his  Native  Country,  lamentably  tattered,  both  in  the 
upper-Leather  and  sole,  with  all  the  honest  stitches  he  can 
take.  And  as  willing  never  to  bee  paid  for  his  -work,  by  Old 
English  wonted  pay.  It  is  his  Trade  to  patch  all  the  year 
long,  gratis.  Therefore  I  pray  Gentlemen  keep  your  purses. 
By  Theodore  de  la  Guard.  In  rebus  arduis  ac  tenui  spe, 
fortissima  quseque  consilia  tutissima  sunt.- — Cic.  In  English^ 

When  bootes  and  shoes  are  torne  up  to  the  lefts, 
Coblers  must  thrust  their  awles  up  to  the  hefts. 

This  no  time  tofeare  Apelles  gramm : 

Ne  Sutor  quidem  ultra  crepidam. 

London,  printed  by  J.  D.  &?  R.  I.  for  Stephen  Bowtett,  at  the 
sign  of  the  Bible  in  Popes  Head- Alley,  1 647. 

"A  Word  of  Ireland :  Not  of  the  Nation  universally,  nor  of  any 
man  in  it,  that  hath  so  much  as  one  haire  of  Christianity  or 
Humanity  growing  on  his  head  or  beard,  but  onely  of  the 
truculent  Cut-throats,  and  such  as  shall  take  up  Armes  in, 
their  Defence. 

"  These  Irish,  anciently  called  Anthropophagi,  man-eaters  : 
Have  a  Tradition  among  them,  That  when  the  Devill  shewed 
our  Saviour  all  the  kingdomes  of  the  Earth  and  their  glory, 
that  he  would  not  show  him  Ireland,  but  reserved  it  for  him- 
self: it  is  probably  true,  for  he  hath  kept  it  ever  since  for  his 
own  peculiar ;  the  pld  Fox  foresaw  that  it  would  eclipse  the 

60 


474  VINDICLK    HIBERNICJE. 

glory  of  all  the  rest :  he  thought  it  wisdome  to  keep  it  for  a 
Boggards  for  himself,  and  all  his  unclean  spirits  imployed  in 
this  Hemisphere,  and  the  people,  to  doe  his  Son  and  Heire,  I 
mean  the  Pope,  that  service  for  which  Lewis  the  eleventh  kept 
his  Barber  Oliver,  which  makes  them  so  blood-thirsty.  They 
are  the  very  Offall  of  men,  Dregges  of  Mankind,  Reproache 
of  Christendome,  the  Bots  that  crawle  on  the  Beasts  taile.  J 
wonder  Rome  it  self  is  not  ashamed  of  them. 

"  J  begge  upon  my  hands  and  knees,  that  the  Expedition 
against  them  may  be  undertaken  while  the  hearts  and  hands  of 
our  Souldiery  are  hot,  to  whom  J  will  be  bold  to  say  briefly : 
Happy  is  he  that  shall  reward  them  as  they  have  served  us : 
and  Cursed  be  he  that  shall  doe  that  work  of  the  Lord  negli- 
gently !  Cursed  be  he  that  holdeth  back  his  Sword  from  blood!  !  ! 
yea,  Cursed  be  he  that  maketh  not  his  Sword  starke  drunk  with 
Irish  blood!!!  that  doth  not  recompence  them  double  for 
their  hellish  treachery  to  the  English  !  that  maketh  them  not 
heaps  up'on  heaps!!  and  their  country  a  dwelling  place  for 
Dragons,  an  Astonishment  to  Nations!  Let  not  that  eye  look 
for  pity,  nor  that  hand  to  be  spared,  thatpities  or  spares  them ! 
and  let  him  be  accursed,  that  curseth  them  not  bitterly  !  !  !  /" 

This  work  was  received  with  such  approbation, 
that  it  passed  through  several  editions.  When 
such  Luciferian  doctrines  were  fulminated,  coolly 
and  deliberately,  from  the  press,  it  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  they  were  carried  into  ferocious  and  san- 
guinary practice,  in  the  field  of  battle ;  and  that 
"  the  nits"  and  "  the  lice""  were  slaughtered  in  one 
common  mass. 


(     475     ) 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Means  by  which  subjugated  countries  are  held  in 
chains.  Protestant  ascendency.  Code  of  demo- 
ralization, tyranny,  oppression,  rapine,  and 
murder.  Robbery  of  father,  mother,  sister, 
and  brother,  invited  by  acts  of  Parliament. 
Prohibition  of  education.  Horse  thieves  excited 
and  protected  by  law. 

IN  every  subjugated  country,  there  is  always  a 
small  body  of  the  natives,  who  make  a  regular 
contract,  not  written,  but  well  understood,  and 
duly  carried  into  effect,  by  which  they  sell  the 
nation  to  its  oppressors,  and  themselves  as  slaves, 
for  the  sorry  privilege  of  tyrannizing  over  their 
fellow  slaves.  This  has  ever  been  the  surest 
foundation  on  which  the  dominion  of  one  coun- 
try over  another  is  perpetuated.  The  base  and 
miserable  oligarchs  who  subserve  the  interests  of 
the  ruling  nation,  indemnify  themselves  for  the 
chains  which  they  drag  about/ by  the  superior 
weight  and  pressure  of  those  they  impose. 

When  the  English  Henrys  overran  and  subdued 
France ;  had  the  crown  placed  on  their  heads,  in 
Paris ;  and  enjoyed  a  flattering  prospect  of  per- 
manently securing  its  descent  to  their  posterity, 


476  VINDICUE  HIBERNICJE. 

it  was  not  by  any  means  through  the  force  of 
English  skill  or  English  valour,  though  both  were 
of  the  highest  grade  at  that  period,  that  they 
achieved  the  conquest.  They  had  at  all  times  in 
their  armies  hosts  of  traitorous  Frenchmen,  who 
paved  the  way  for  the  conquest  and  slavery  of 
their  country.  Such,  too,  was  the  Roman  policy, 
— such  the  means  whereby  that  all-grasping  and 
devastating  government  extended  its  empire  over 
the  then  known  world. 

But  the  case  of  Ireland  is  probably  among  the 
most  forcible  illustrations  of  this  maxim  that  his- 
tory affords.  A  herd  of  wretched  oligarchs  have 
for  centuries  existed  there,  who  have  bartered 
their  country's  dearest  rights  and  interests,  for  the 
privilege  of  trampling  down  their  countrymen, 
over  whom  they  have  exercised  the  most  galling 
tyranny  that  the  mind  of  man  can  conceive. 

Whenever  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  shake 
off  the  yoke  of  foreign  power,  to  emancipate  the 
nation,  this  oligarchy  has  always  had  its  spies, 
and  pimps,  and  informers,  among  the  friends  of 
their  country,  by  whose  agency  the  attempt  was 
baffled,  and  the  patriots  betrayed  to  the  gallows. 

11  Oh  for  a  tongue  to  curse  the  slave, 

Whose  treason,  like  a  deadly  blight, 
Comes  o'er  the  councils  of  the  brave, 

And  blasts  them  in  their  hour  of  might ! 
May  life's  unblessed  cup  for  him 
Be  drugg'd  with  treacheries  to  the  brim, 
With  hopes,  that  but  allure  to  fly, 

With  joys,  that  vanish  while  he  sips, 


PROTESTANT  ASCENDENCY.        477 

Like  Dead-Sea  fruits,  that  tempt  the  eye, 

But  turn  to  ashes  on  the  lips ! 
His  country's  curse,  his  children's  shameT 
Outcast  of  virtue,  peace,  and  fame, 
May  he,  at  last,  with  lips  of  flame, 
On  the  parch'd  desert  thirsting  die, — 
While  lakes,  that  shone  in  mockery  nigh, 
Are  fading  off,  untouch'd,  untasted, 
Like  the  once  glorious  hopes  he  blasted  ! 
And,  when  from  earth  his  spirit  flies, 

Just  Prophet,  let  the  damned  one  dwell 
Full  in  the  sight  of  Paradise, 

Beholding  heaven,  and  feeling  hell  !"460 

This  oligarchy  now  styles  itself,  as  we  have 
more  than  once  stated,  "  the  Protestant  ascen- 
dency ;"  and  is  composed  of  the  professors  of  the 
established  religion.  Its  oppression  has  always 
extended  over  the  Protestant  dissenters,  as  well 
as  over  the  Roman  Catholics ;  but  with  very  great 
disparity  of  effect.  The  principal  grievance  of 
the  Protestant  dissenter,  which  he  bears  in  com- 
mon with  the  Catholic,  is,  that  he  is  obliged  to 
support  the  ministers  of  two  different  religions, — 
his  own  and  the  dominant  one.  In  other  re- 
spects, he  stands  on  nearly  the  same  ground  as 
the  professor  of  the  established  religion. 

The  tyranny  exercised  by  this  oligarchy  over 
the  Catholics,  has  displayed  itself  in  the  form  of 
a  barbarous  code  of  laws,  the  professed  object  of 
which  was  "  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery  ;" 
but  the  real  one,  to  plunder  those  on  whom  they 
were  to  operate,  of  their  property,  and  to  divest 

560  Lalla  Rookh. 


478  VINDICDE  HIBERNICJE. 

them  of  their  most  sacred  rights  and  privileges ; 
and  the  direct  effect  of  which  was  to  demoralize 
the  nation ;  to  reduce  it  to  a  state  of  the  most 
deplorable  wretchedness  and  misery,  not  exceed- 
ed throughout  the  wide  world ;  and  to  legalize 
an  odious  system  of  rapine  and  fraud. 

"  Just  Alia !  what  must  be  thy  look, 

When  such  a  wretch  before  thee  stands 
Unblushing,  with  thy  Sacred  Book, 

Turning  the  leaves  with  blood-stained  hands, 
And  wresting  from  its  page  sublime 
His  creed  of  lust  and  hate  and  crime ! 
Ev'n  as  those  bees  of  Trebizond, 

Which  from  the  sunniest  flowers  that  glad 
With  their  pure  smile  the  gardens  round, 

Draw  venom  forth  that  drives  men  mad  !"561 

This  odious  and  oppressive  system  was  about 
a  century  in  maturing.  Hardly  a  session  of  the 
Irish  Parliament  took  place,  in  which  there  was 
not  devised  some  new  penalty,  some  new  forfei- 
ture, or  some  new  disqualification,  to  crush,  to 
prey  on,  and  to  immolate  the  wretched  Roman 
Catholics.  The  utmost  ingenuity  of  fraud  and 
rapine  was  constantly  tortured,  to  add  to  the 
weight  of  their  clanking  chains. 

The  most  odious  and  wicked  provisions  of  this 
code  have  been  repealed ;  and  an  opinion  too 
generally  prevails,  that  it  is  nearly  annihilated. 
This  is  a  most  egregious  error.  There  are  num- 
berless harassing  and  vexatious  disqualifications 
and  incapacities  still  in  full  force.  There  is  a 

*»  Lalla  Rookh. 


POPERY  LAWS.  479 

most  valuable  volume  now  before  us,  of  above 
three  hundred  and  fifty  pages,  which  contains  a 
detail  of  those  disqualifications,  and  is  wholly 
confined  to  that  subject.  It  was  our  intention  to 
have  given  a  sketch  of  them ;  but  our  limits  for- 
bid the  fulfilment  of  this  purpose. 

Various  causes  conspired  to  produce  the  salutary 
effect  of  mitigating  the  severity  of  this  vile  code. 
The  first  stroke  it  received  arose  from  the  spirit 
of  volunteering  in  Ireland,  which  was  the  con- 
sequence of  the  declared  inability  of  the  British 
government  to  protect  that  country,  during  the 
war  against  the  United  States,  France,  Spain,  and 
Holland.  Every  description  of  religionists  mixed 
ill  the  ranks  of  the  volunteers,  which  gave  rise  ta 
an  enlarged  and  liberal  spirit  of  national  feeling. 
The  Irish  Catholic  and  the  Irish  Protestant,  as  well 
as  the  Protestant  dissenter,  were  amalgamated 
into  one  common  mass  of  friends  to  their  com- 
mon country.  Many  links  of  the  chains  of  the 
nation  at  large,  as  well  as  of  the  proscribed  Ca- 
tholics, were  then  knocked  off.  The  increasing 
liberality  of  the  age  has  successively  removed 
others.  But  it  is  disgraceful  and  dishonourable, 

that  much  remains  vet  to  be  done. 

» 

It  may  be  thought  a  work  of  supererogation,  at 
this  time,  to  revive  the  remembrance  of  a  code  so 
odious,  so  detestable,  and  so  infamous.  But  this 
work  would  be  very  incomplete,  and  the  reader 
would  have  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  the  state  of 
Ireland,  and  the  horrible  tyranny  under  which 


480  VlNDiCI^L    HIBERNICJE. 

the  mass  of  the  population  has  groaned,  did  we 
not  give  some  sketch  of  this  system. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  of  pages  have  been 
written  and  printed,  in  discussing  the  question, 
Who  and  what  is  Antichrist,  the  beast  with  seven 
heads  and  ten  horns  ?  Various  solutions  have 
been  given  to  the  world.  We  are  not  very  learned 
in  this  kind  of  lore ;  but  flatter  ourselves  that 
we  have  made  the  discovery,  which  we,  freely 
communicate : — we  are  convinced  that  religious 
persecution  is  the  real  and  genuine  Antichrist. 
There  is  nothing  of  the  wickedness  of  man  so 
opposite  to  the  spirit  displayed  in  the  words  and 
actions  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Antichrist  obtained  a  glorious  triumph  over 
the  spirit  of  Jesus,  when  the  Inquisition  was  es- 
tablished at  Madrid,  at  Lisbon,  at  Goa,  and  else- 
where :  and  his  reign  has  been  coeval  with  the 
existence  of  those  execrable  tribunals.  He  reign- 
ed at  Paris,  in  full  splendour,  at  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew's ;  in  England,  under  the  reign 
of  Mary  5  and  he  has  reigned  throughout  all 
Christendom,  from  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era,  in  the  persecutions,  more  or  less 
severe,  of  the  unfortunate  Jews.* 

*  It  is  inexpressibly  painful  to  state,  that  an  attempt  tp 
meliorate  the  condition  of  the  Jews,  has,  to  the  disgrace  and 
opprobrium  of  our  common  country,  and  of  the  age,  recently 
failed,  in  the  state  of  Maryland ! !  So  powerful  is  inveterate 
prejudice,  so  slow  the  progress  of  illumination,  and  so  much 
easier  is  it  to  rivet  chains  than  to  knock  them  off! 


ANTICHRIST   IN   GENEVA.  481 

Nothing,  however,  but  gross  ignorance  and 
bigotry,  can  suppose  that  the  reign  of  the  Anti- 
christ of  persecution  has  been  confined  to  Madrid, 
Lisbon,  Goa,  Paris,  or  the  other  places  usually 
allotted  to  him.  The  most  superficial  glance  at 
history  must  evince  the  egregious  folly  of  such 
an  opinion.  Antichrist  reigned  in  Geneva,  when 
Calvin  sanctioned  the  death  of  Servetus ;  in  Lon- 
don, when  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  erected 
their  gibbets,  to  immolate  those  opposed  to  their 
opinions;  in  Scotland,  when  the  Covenanters 
were  shot  down  in  the  tields ;  in  Holland,  when 
the  Remonstrants  were  plundered,  and  banished, 
and  immolated,  for  their  dissent  from  the  esta- 
blished creed ;  in  Boston,  when  the  Quakers 
were  persecuted  and  hanged ;  and  he  exercised 
a  most  rigorous  sway  in  Ireland,  for  above  a  cen- 
tury, during  the  operation  of  the  barbarous  code 
"  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery." 

We  stand  pledged  to  trace,  at  a  future  day,  the 
progress  of  Antichrist  in  various  parts  of  Chris- 
tendom.* At  present,  the  nature  of  this  work 
confines  us  to  his  proceedings  in  Ireland. 

We  assume  this  position  as  undeniable  : — 

Every  man  has  a  sacred  and  indefeasible  right 
to  worship  God  according  to  his  judgment,  pro- 
vided such  worship  do  not  tend  to  any  breach  of 
the  fundamental  laws  of  morality.  Corollaries 
from  this  maxim  are, — 

*  In  the  Religious  Olive  Branch. 
61 


482    •  'VINDICLK    HIBERNICJE. 

I.  Every  disqualification,  on  account  of  reli- 
gious opinions  or  worship,  is  tyranny  and  oppres- 
sion ; 

II.  Every  pecuniary  penalty  is  robbery ;  and 

III.  Every  capital  punishment  is  murder. 
Letvus,  by  these  principles,  test  the  code  in 

question ;  and  we  shall  be  satisfied  that  it  was 
one  unvarying  tissue  of  oppression,  robbery,  and 
murder.  It  awarded  capital  punishments,  as  will 
appear  by  the  subsequent  detail,  against  about 
twenty  different  acts,  all  of  them  innocent,  and 
many  absolutely  meritorious.  The  strength  of 
the  term,  murder,  may  startle  some  readers  :  but 
we  hold  the  position  self-evident, — that  those  who 
suffer  death,  for  acts  not  only  not  immoral  or 
unjust,  but  absolutely  laudable,  are  murdered, 
though  their  execution  be  sanctioned  by  all  the 
legislatures  and  all  the  pretended  courts  of  justice 
in  the  world. 

All  Roman  Catholic  archbishops,  bishops,  vicars 
general,  deans,  or  any  other  persons  of  that  reli- 
gion, exercising  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  were 
liable  to  imprisonment  and  transportation ;  and, 
in  case  of  returning,  were  guilty  of  high  treason, 
and  were  to  be  punished  accordingly.* 

*  "  All  Popish  archbishops,  bishops,  vicars  general,  deans, 
Jesuits,  monks,  friars,  and  all  other  regular  Popish  clergy,  and 
all  Papists  exercising  any  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  shall  de- 
part this  kingdom  before  the  1st  of  May,  1698.  And  if  any 
of  them  shall  be,  at  any  time  after  the  said  day,  in  this  king- 


LEGALIZED    MURDER  !  483 

In  the  year  1704,  a  law  was  passed,  ordering 
all  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  in  Ireland  to  regis- 
ter themselves  in  the  parishes  to  which  they 
respectively  belonged ;  and  to  give  security  for 
their  good  behaviour,  and  for  their  non-removal 
from  the  county  where  they  then  resided.* 

When  a  priest  officiated  in  any  other  parish 
than  the  one  wherein  he  was  registered,  he  was 
liable  to  transportation ;  and,  in  case  of  return, 
to  be  hanged  without  benefit  of  clergy. \ 

dom,  they  shall  be  imprisoned  and  remain  there  without  bail  till 
they  be  transported  beyond  the  seas,  out  of  the  king's  domi- 
nion, wherever  the  king,  his  heirs  or  successors,  or  chief  go- 
vernors of  this  kingdom  shall  think  fit ;  and  if  any  so  trans- 
ported shall  return  again  into  this  kingdom,  then  to  be  guilty 
of  high  treason,  and  to  suffer  accordingly"^ 

*  "  Every  Popish  priest,  who  is  now  in  this  kingdom,  shall, 
at  the  next  Quarter  Sessions,  to  be  held  in  the  several  counties, 
or  counties  of  cities  or  towns,  next  after  the  feast  of  St.  John 
the  Baptist,  1704,  return  his  name  and  place  he  resides,  toge- 
ther with  his  age,  the  parish  of  which  he  pretends  to  be  Popish 
priest,  the  time  and  place  of  his  receiving  Popish  orders,  and 
from  whom ;  and  shall  then  enter  into  recognizance,  with  two 
sufficient  sureties,  each  of  the  penalty  of  fifty  pounds,  to  be  of 
peaceable  behaviour,  and  not  remove  out  of  such  county  where 
his  abode  is,  into  any  other  part  of  this  kingdom."563 

f  "  No  Popish  priest  shall  exercise  the  function  or  office  of 
a  Popish  priest,  but  in  the  parish  where  the  said  Popish  priest 
did  officiate  at  the  time  of  registering  the  Popish  clergy,  and 
for  which  parish  also  he  was  registered,  and  in  no  other  parish 
whatsoever,  under  the  .penalties  as  any  Popish  regular  convict 
is  liable  unto."564 

462  Robins,  451.  s63  Idem,  458.  s64  Idem,  464. 


484  V1NDIC03    HIBEftNICJE. 

Every  Roman  Catholic  clergyman  in  the  king- 
dom not  registered  ;*  every  one  afterwards  com- 
ing into  it  from  abroad  ;f  every  one  who  kept  a 
curate  or  assistant;:}:  and  every  such  curate  or 
assistant, £  was  also  liable  to  transportation,  and 
eventually  to  the  gallows,  if  he  returned. 

Two  justices  might  summon  any  Roman  Ca- 
tholic, sixteen  years  old,  to  appear  before  them, 
to  give  testimony  when  and  where  he  heard 
mass ;  who  were  present,  and  who  celebrated  it ; 
and  all  such  other  matters  and  things,  touching 
the  priest,  as  might  be  necessary  to  his  convic- 

,0t 

tion.   In  case  of  refusal,  he  was  subject  to  a  fine  of 
twenty  pounds,  or  imprisonment  for  one  year.565 

*  "  Every  person  whatsoever,  exercising  the  office  or  func- 
tion of  a  Popish  priest,  found  in  this  kingdom,  after  the  24th  of 
June,  1705,  other  than  such  as  are  registered  pursuant  to  the 
above  act,  shall  be  liable  to  such  penalties,  forfeitures,  and  pun- 
ishments, as  are  imposed  on  Popish  archbishops,  bishops,  £s?c.s65 

|  "  Every  Popish  clergyman  coming  into  this  kingdom  after 
the  1st  of  January,  1703,  shall  be  liable  to  such  penalties,  for- 
feitures and  punishments  as  are  imposed  on  Popish  archbishops 
and  bishops."567 

\.  "  Every  Popish  parish  priest,  that  shall  keep  any  Popish 
curate,  assistant,  or  coadjutor,  shall  lose  the  benefit  of  having 
been  registered,  and  shall  incur  all  the  penalties  of  a  Popish 
regular,  and  shall  be  prosecuted  as  such;  §  and  every  such  Po- 
pish curate,  assistant,  or  coadjutor  shall  be  deemed  as  a  Popish 
regular,  and  prosecuted  as  such."569 

565  Robins,  462.  SM  Idem,  459. 

567  Idem,  453.  568  Idem,  462. 


LEGALIZED   MURDER!  485 

Any  Roman  Catholic  priest,  celebrating  mar- 
riage between  two  Protestants,  or  between  a 
Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic,  was  guilty  of 
felony,*  and  liable  to  suffer  death  without  benefit 
of  clergy  !f 

No  Roman  Catholic  was  allowed  to  have  in  his 
own  possession,  or  the  possession  of  any  other 
person  for  his  use,  any  horse,  mare,  or  gelding, 
of  the  value  of  five  pounds.J  Any  Protestant, 

*  "  If  any  Popish  priest,  or  reputed  Popish  priest,  or  any 
person  pretending  to  be  a  Popish  priest,  or  any  degraded  cler- 
gyman, or  any  layman  pretending  to  be  a  clergyman  of  the 
church  of  Ireland,  as  by  law  established,  shall,  after  the  25th 
day  of  April,  1 726,  celebrate  any  marriage  between  trvo  Pro- 
testants, or  reputed  Protestants,  or  between  a  Protestant  or 
reputed  Protestant  and  a  Papist,  such  Popish  priest,  &c.  shall 
be  guilty  of  felony,  and  shall  suffer  death  as  a  felon,  -without 
benefit  of  clergy,  or  of  the  statute!/.'"*69 

f  The  writer  of  this  recollects  an  instance,  in  his  youth,  of 
the  execution  of  a  Catholic  clergyman,  under  this  execrable 
statute. 

\  "  No  Papist,  after  the  20th  of  January,  1695,  shall  be  capa- 
ble to  have,  or  keep  in  his  possession,  or  in  the  possession  of 
any  other,  to  his  use,  or  at  his  disposition,  any  horse,  gelding, 
or  mare,  of  the  value  of  Si.  or  more  ;  and  if  any  person  of  the 
Protestant  religion,  shall  make  discovery  thereof  upon  oath,  to 
any  two  justices  of  the  peace,  or  to  the  chief  magistrate  of  any- 
city  or  town  corporate,  they  may  within  their  respective  limits, 
by  warrant  under  their  hands  .and  seals,  authorize  such  per- 
son, in  the  day-time  only,  to  search  for  and  secure  all  such 
horses :  and  in  case  of  resistance,  to  break  open  any  door,  and 
bring  such  horse  or  horses  before  them,  and  such  discoverer, 
(being  of  the  Protestant  religion,)  paying  or  making  tender, 

m  Robins,  389. 


486  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

discovering  to  any  two  justices  that  a  Roman 
Catholic  had  a  horse  of  that  value,  might,  with  a 
constable  and  assistant,  break  open  any  door; 
seize  such  horse  ;  bring  him  before  the  justices ; 
and,  on  paying  five  pounds  five  shillings,  have 
the  property  of  such  horse,  "as  if  bought  in 
market  overt."* 

Any  person  concealing  such  horse,  was  liable 
to  be  imprisoned  three  months,  and  pay  treble 
the  value.570 

Civil  officers  were  authorized  to  seize  the 
horses  of  Roman  Catholics,  on  certain  contingen- 
cies. If  returned,  the  owners  were  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  seizing  and  keeping  them.571 

before  such  justices,  mayor,  &c.  of  the  sum  of  5/.  5*.  to  the 
owner  or  possessor  of  such  horse,  after  such  payment,  or  ten- 
der and  refusal,  the  property  of  such  horse  or  horses,  shall  be 
vested  in  the  person  making  such  discovery  and  tender,  as  if  the 
same  had  been  bought  and  sold  in  market  overt."572 

*  This  clause  had  nearly  proved  fatal  to  a  rascal  who  took 
advantage  of  it,  about  forty  years  since.  He  forcibly  seized 
a  horse,  saddled  and  bridled,  belonging  to  a  Roman  Catholic. 
But,  though  the  law  sanctioned  the  robbery  of  horses,  it  did 
not  authorize  that  of  saddles  and  bridles.  The  felon  was 
prosecuted  for  the  plunder  of  the  harness,  and  narrowly 
escaped  the  gallows,  which  he  so  richly  deserved.  One  other 
circumstance,  arising  from  this  law,  may  merit  attention.  A 
Catholic,  who  owned  one  of  the  most  celebrated  racers  in  Ire- 
land, worth  two  hundred  guineas,  being  informed  that  a  person 
was  about  to  seize  him,  and  pay  him  the  price  fixed  by  law, 
mounted  the  horse,  and  presented  him  to  a  Protestant  friend ; 
thus  defeating  the  miscreant  of  his  vile  purpose. 

570  Robins,  451.  m  Idem,  466.  572  Idem,  450. 


LEGAL    ROBBERY.  487 

To  increase  the  profligacy  and  turpitude  of  this 
code,  a  large  portion  of  its  provisions  were  ex 
post  facto,  and  operated  the  work  of  rapine  and 
depredation  for  years  antecedent  to  their  enaction. 
In  1710,  an  act  was  passed,  annulling  fines,  reco- 
veries, and  settlements,  made  for  seven  years 
preceding.* 

All  collateral  and  other  securities,  by  mort- 
gages, judgments,  statutes  merchant,  or  of  the 
staple,  or  otherwise  howsoever,  to  cover,  support, 
or  make  good  any  bargain,  sale,  confirmation, 
release,  or  other  conveyance,  were  rendered  null 
and  void.  And  any  Protestant  might  sue  out  such 
mortgages,  or  sue  for  such  lands,  in  any  court  of 
law,  and  obtain  a  verdict,  and  have  execution  to 
be  put  in  possession  thereof.^ 

*"  All  settlements,  fines,  common  recoveries,  and  other  convey- 
ances had  or  made  since  the  1st  of  January,  1703,  of  any  lands, 
&c.  by  any  Papist,  or  by  any  Protestant  who  turned  Papist 
since  the  said  1st  of  Jan.  1703,  or  by  any  such  Papist  with  his 
then  Protestant  wife,  who  hath  turned  Papist  as  aforesaid, 
whereby  any  Protestant  is  barred  of  any  estate,  in  reversion  or 
remainder,  whereunto  such  Protestant  was  intituled  at  the  time 
of  levying  such  fine,  suffering  such  recovery,  or  making  such 
conveyance,  shall  as  to  such  Protestant  be  null  and  uozW."573 

f  "All  collateral  and  other  securities,  by  mortgages,  judg- 
ments, statutes  merchant,  or  of  the  staple  or  otherwise,  -which 
have  been! .'!  or  hereafter  shall  be,  made  or  entered  into,  to 
cover,  support,  or  secure,  and  make  good  any  bargain,  sale, 
confirmation,  release,  feoffment,  lease,  or  other  conveyance, 
contrary  to  2  An.  Sess.  1.  c.  6.  are  void  to  the  purchaser  of 
any  the  said  lands  or  tenements  in  trust  for,  or  for  the  benefit 

573  Robins,  460. 


488  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJE. 

This  provision  was  retrospective :  thus,  if  a 
Roman  Catholic  had  lent  ten  thousand  pounds, 
and,  as  a  security  for  payment,  taken  a  mortgage 
on  real  estate,  any  Protestant  might  sue  out  such 
mortgage,  and  rob  the  lender  of  his  property ! 
None  of  the  legislators  of  Tripoli  or  Algiers, — 
none  of  the  ferocious  followers  of  Blackboard,  or 
Morgan,  the  pirates, — none  of  the  banditti  whose 
trade  is  rapine  and  plunder,  ever  conceived  a 
more  piratical  or  plundering  act  than  this.  It 
may  be  fairly  said  to  have  converted  the  seat  of 
legislation  into  "  a  den  of  thieves." 

of,  any  Papist,  as  likewise  to  any  such  Papist,  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  and  all  such  lands,  &c.  so  conveyed  or  leased,  or  to  be 
conveyed  or  leased  to  any  Papist,  or  to  the  use  of,  or  in  trust 
for,  any  Papist,  contrary  to  the  said  act,  and  all  such  collateral 
securities  as  are  or  shall  be  made  or  entered  into,  to  cover, 
support,  secure  or  make  good  the  same,  may  be  sued  for  by  any 
Protestant^  by  his  proper  action,  real,  personal,  or  mixt,  found- 
ed on  this  act,  in  any  of  her  majesty's  courts  of  law  or  equity, 
if  the  nature  of  the  case  shall  require  it. 

"  Provided  any  Protestant  may  prefer  one  or  more  bill  or 
bills  in  the  chancery,  or  chancery  of  exchequer,  against  any 
such  sale,  lease,  mortgage,  or  incumbrance,  and  against  all  per- 
sons privy  to  such  trust  for  Papists ;  and  to  compel  such  per- 
son to  discover  such  trusts,  and  answer  all  matters  relating 
thereunto,  as  by  such  bill  shall  be  required :  to  which  bill  no  plea 
or  demurrer  shall  be  allowed  :  but  the  defendant  shall  ansiver 
the  same  at  large  on  oath,  ivhich  answer  shall  be  good  evidence 
against  the  defendant,  in  actions  brought  upon  this  act :  and  all 
issues,  in  any  suit  founded  on  this  act,  shall  be  tried  by  none 
but  kno-wn  Protestants  ! .'  f51* 

574  Robins,  464. 


UNDISGUISED   RAPINE.  489 

If  any  Protestant  woman,  possessed  of  real 
estate  of  any  description  whatever,  or  personal 
estate  to  the  value  of  five  hundred  pounds,  mar- 
ried, without  a  previous  certificate  that  her  in- 
tended husband  was  a  Protestant,  she  forfeited 
her  whole  estate,  which  went  to  the  next  Protes- 
tant heir.* 

To  outrage  the  feelings  of  the  wretched  Helots, 
they  were  forbidden,  under  a  penalty  of  ten 
pounds,  to  bury  their  dead  in  the  grave-yards  of 

*  "  If  any  Protestant  maid,  or  woman  unmarried,  being  heir 
apparent  to  her  ancestor,  or  having  a  sole  or  joint  estate  or  in- 
terest in  fee-simple  or  in  fee-tail,  or  being  seized  in  fee-simple 
or  in  coparcenary,  or  in  common,  or  being  seized  of  an  estate 
for  life  or  lives,  by  way  of  jointure,  dower,  or  otherwise,  or 
being  possessed  of,  or  entitled  to  any  personal  estate,  either  in 
money,  stock,  plate,  jewels,  or  other  goods  and  chattels,  in  law 
or  equity,  to  the  value  of  500/.  or  more,  shall  at  any  time  after 
the  first  of  January  next,  [1704]  marry  or  take  to  husband  any 
person  whatsoever,  without  having  first  obtained  a  certificate 
in  writing,  under  the  hand  of  the  minister  of  the  parish,  bishop 
of  the  diocess,  and  some  justice  of  the  peace  living  near  the 
place  (or  any  two  of  them)  where  such  person  shall  be  resi- 
dent, at  the  time  of  such  marriage,  that  he  is  a  known  Protes- 
tant, that  then,  and  from  the  time  of  such  marriage,  such  Pro- 
testant person  so  marrying,  and  the  person  she  shall  so  marry, 
shall  be  for  ever  afterwards  disabled  and  rendered  incapable  of 
having  or  enjoying  all  or  any  of  the  aforesaid  estates  or  in-  • 
terests  ;  and  that  the  same  shall  go  to,  and  be  deemed  to  be  the 
right  and  estate  of  the  next  Protestant  of  the  kin,  to  whom  the 
same  would  descend  by  law,  were  such  Protestant  maid  or  wo- 
man, and  all  other  intervening  Popish  heirs,  executors  or  ad- 
ministrators, really  dead  and  intestate  at  the  time  of  such  mar- 
wage.  "S7S 

575  Robins,  385. 
62 


490  VINDICIJE   HIBERNICJE. 

any  suppressed  convent,  abbey,  or  monastery,* 
where  rested  the  remains  of  their  ancestors ! 

In  order  to  secure  impartial  justice,  in  England, 
foreigners,  accused  of  petit  treason,  murder,  or 
felony,  are  tried  by  a  jury  composed  of  an  equal 
number  of  natives  and  foreigners ;  and  juries  are 
thus  constituted  in  civil  actions  between  denizens 
and  foreigners.  But,  as  if  nothing  were  too  sa- 
cred or  holy  to  be  trampled  under  foot,  in  Ireland, 
in  all  the  cases  arising  under  the  laws  "  to  pre- 
vent the  growth  of  Popery,"  Catholics  were  ex- 
pressly excluded  from  juries  ;f  and  their  honour, 
their  property,  and  their  lives,  were  thus  exposed 
to  the  mercy  of  their  envenomed  enemies. 

If  a  Catholic  child  were  sent  abroad  without 
license,  it  was  presumed  by  law  that  he  was  sent 

*  "  None  shall,  from  the  said  29th  of  December,  bury  any 
dead,  in  any  suppressed  monastery,  abbey,  or  convent,  that  is 
not  made  use  of  for  celebrating  divine  service  according  to  the 
liturgy  of  the  church  of  Ireland  by  the  law  established,  or  with- 
in the  precincts  thereof,  upon  pain  of  ten  pounds"*76 

f  "  From  the  first  of  Michaelmas-Term,  1 708,  no  Papist  shall 
serve  or  be  returned  to  serve  on  any  grand  jury  in  the  Queen's 
Bench,  or  before  justices  of  assize,  oyer  and  terminer,  or  gaol 
delivery,  or  Quarter  Sessions,  unless  it  appear  to  the  court 
that  a  sufficient  number  of  Protestants  cannot  then  be  had  for 
the  service ;  and  in  all  trials  of  issues,  on  any  presentment,  in- 
dictment, or  information  or  action  on  any  statute,  for  any  of- 
fence committed  by  Papists,  in  breach  of  such  laws,  the  plain- 
tiff" or  prosecutor  may  challenge  any  Papist  returned  as  juror \ 
and  assign  as  a  cause  that  he  is  a  Papist,  which  challenge  shall 
be  allowed  of  !!  I"™ 

576  Robins,  452.  577  Idem,  459. 


UNDISGUISED   RAPINE.  491 

to  be  educated  in  a  foreign  seminary ;  by  which  a 
forfeiture  of  his  personal  and  of  the  income  of  his 
real  estate  was  incurred.  On  his  return,  he  might 
apply  to  court,  and  prove  the  cause  of  his  absence 
to  have  been  innocent:  in  which  case,  he  was 
entitled  to  the  future  income  of  his  real  estate, 
but  could  not  be  restored  to  the  proceeds  during  his 
absence,  nor  to  any  part  of  his  personal  estate!"* 

*  "  If  any  of  the  king's  subjects  of  this  realm,  at  any  time  after 
this  session  of  Parliament,  shall  pass  or  go,  or  shall  convey  or 
send,  or  cause  to  be  conveyed  or  sent,  any  child  or  other  per- 
son, into  any  parts  beyond  the  seas,  out  of  the  king's  obedience, 
to  the  intent  to  enter  into,  or  be  resident,  or  trained  up,  in  any 
priory,  abbey,  nunnery,  Popish  university,  college,  or  school, 
or  house  of  Jesuits  or  priests,  or  in  any  Popish  private  fami- 
ly there  ;  and  shall  be  by  any  Popish  person  instructed,  per- 
suaded or  strengthened  in  the  Popish  religion,  in  any  sort 
to  profess  the  same  ;  or  shall  send  or  convey,  or  cause  to  be 
conveyed  or  sent,  any  money  or  other  thing  towards  the  main- 
tenance of  any  child  or  other  person  already  sent,  or  that  shall 
hereafter  go  or  be  sent,  to  be  trained  up  and  instructed  as 
aforesaid ;  or  (under  the  name  or  colour  of  charity)  towards 
the  relief  of  any  religious  houses  whatsoever ;  every  such  of- 
fender, being  thereof  lawfully  convicted,  or  upon  any  informa- 
tion, presentment  or  indictment  for  any  the  offences  aforesaid, 
to  be  found  by  a  jury  of  the  county,  city,  or  town  corporate, 
where  such  offender  shall  have  any  estate  of  inheritance  at  the 
time  of  the  offence  committed,  shall  be  for  ever  (after  such 
finding)  disabled  to  sue  or  prosecute  any  action,  bill,  plaint  or 
information,  in  course  of  law,  or  to  sue  in  any  court  of  equity, 
or  to  be  guardian  or  executor,  or  administrator  to  any  person, 
or  capable  of  any  legacy  or  deed  of  gift,  or  to  bear  any  office 
within  this  realm,  and  shall  forfeit  all  their  goods  and  chattels, 
and  also  all  their  lands,  tenements  and  hereditaments,  rents, 


492  VINDICLK    HIBERNICJE. 

Roman  Catholics  were  prohibited  from  acting 
as  guardians.  An  infraction  of  this  law  subjected 
the  party  to  a  penalty  of  five  hundred  pounds.  * 

annuities,  offices  and  estate  of  freehold,  during  their  natufal 
lives."*™ 

"  And  if  any  person  be  convicted  of  being  sent  beyond  the 
seas,  contrary  to  this  act,  by  the  conviction  of  the  person  send- 
ing or  conveying  him  only,  such  person,  upon  his  return  into 
this  kingdom,  shall,  at  any  time  within  twelve  months  after, 
or  within  twelve  months  after  attaining  the  age  of  twenty-one 
years,  upon  prayer,  by  motion  to  the  king's  bench  in  this  king- 
dom, be  admitted  to  his  trial ;  and  the  judges  of  the  said  court, 
upon  such  prayer,  shall  cause  an  information  to  be  exhibited 
against  him,  to  which  he  shall  plead ;  and  the  court  shall  pro- 
ceed to  trial  thereupon,  by  a  jury  of  the  county  where  the 
said  court  shall  then  sit ;  and  the  defendant,  at  the  trial,  shall 
be  obliged  to  prove  to  what  intent  he  was  sent  or  conveyed 
beyond  the  seas,  and  unless  he  makes  it  appear  that  he  was  not 
sent  or  conveyed  contrary  to  this  act,  it  shall  be  taken  for 
granted  that  he  -was  sent  to  the  contrary,  as  though  the  same 
had  been  fully  proved.  And  in  case,  upon  trial,  the  party  shall 
be  acquitted,  then  he  shall  be  discharged  of  all  the  disabilities, 
penalties  and  forfeitures  in  this  act,  except  his  goods  and  chat- 
tels, and  the  profits  of  his  lands  incurred,  received  before  such 
acquittal. 

"  And  every  such  person,  sent  or  conveyed  as  aforesaid, 
that  shall,  within  six  months  after  his  return  into  this  kingdom, 
in  the  chancery  or  king's  bench,  in  the  term  time,  between  the 
hours  of  eight  and  twelve  in  the  morning,  take  the  oaths,"  &c. 
"  shall  from  thenceforth  be  discharged  of  all  the  disabilities 
aforesaid ;  and  shall  from  such  time  be  restored  to  the  receipt 
of  the  future  growing  rents,  and  projits  of  his  said  real  estate 

Only,  BUT  SHALL  NEVERTHELESS  LOSE  ALL  THOSE  PAST,  AND 
ALL  HIS  PERSONAL  ESTATE."579 

*  "  No  Papist  shall  be  guardian  unto,  or  have  the  tuition  or 
custody  of,  any  orphan  or  child  under  the  age  of  twenty-one 

578  Robins,  1 85.  579  Idem,  1 86. 


OPPRESSION.  493 

Roman  Catholic  house-keepers  were  obliged  to 
find  fit  Protestant  substitutes  for  militia  duty ;  and, 
in  case  of  neglect  or  refusal,  to  pay  double  the  fine 
imposed  on  Protestants  ;*  and  likewise  to  pay,  to- 
wards the  support  of  the  militia,  double  what  the 
Protestants  paid.f 

No  Catholics  were  allowed  to  purchase  any 
part  of  the  forfeited  estates ;  nor  to  inherit,  take, 
make  title  to,  by  descent,  purchase,  limitation, 
devise,  or  other  conveyance,  or  to  have,  hold,  or 
enjoy  any  such  estates.^  They  were  even  prohi- 

years  :  but  the  same  (where  the  person  intituled  to,  or  having 
the  guardianship  of,  such  child,  is  or  shall  be  a  Papist)  shall 
be  disposed  of  by  chancery  to  some  near  relation  of  such  or- 
phan, &c.  being  a  Protestant,  to  whom  the  estate  cannot  de- 
scend. 

"  If  any  Papist  shall  take  upon  him  the  guardianship  or 
tuition  of  any  orphan  or  child,  contrary  to  this  act,  he  shall 
forfeit  5001,  to  be  recovered  by  action  of  debt."**0 

*  "  The  lieutenants,  &c.  or  the  major  part  of  them,  may  cause 
to  be  raised  upon  the  Popish  inhabitants,  and  upon  every  per- 
son who  shall  refuse  to  take  the  oath  of  abjuration,  (which  oath 
any  justice  of  the  peace  may  administer)  double  the  sum  they 
should  have  paid  by  virtue  of  this  act,  in  case  they  had  been 
Protestants."581 

f  "  In  case  such  Papist  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to  find  such 
sufficient  man,  he  shall  forfeit  double  the  sum  as  a  Protestant 
should  forfeit,  in  case  such  Protestant  should  neglect  to  attend 
the  service  of  the  militia,  when  thereunto  required,  by  beat  of 
drum  or  sound  of  trumpet,  as  aforesaid."582 

\  "  Leases  of  the  premises  to  be  made  to  Protestants  only,  at 
the  full  improved  rent,  without  any  fine.  Leases  to  or  in  trust 
for  Papists,  or  assigned  to  them,  to  be  void,  and  the  lessor,  as- 

580  Robins,  454.  sn  Idem,  409.  m  Idem,  4O7. 


494  VINDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

bited  from  taking  them  on  leases  for  lives  or 
years. 

Roman  Catholics  were  prohibited,  in  1702, 
from  buying  or  purchasing,  in  their  own  names, 
or  in  the  names  of  others  to  their  use,  any  lands, 
or  rents  and  profits  out  of  the  same,  other  than 
for  a  term  not  exceeding  thirty-one  years.* 

No  Roman  Catholic  could  be  elected  mayor, 
bailiff,  sovereign,  portrieff,  burgomaster,  recorder, 
sheriff,  treasurer,  alderman,  town-clerk,  burgess, 
common  council-man,  within  any  city,  walled 
town,  or  corporation  :  nor  be  nominated,  appoint- 
ed, presented,  or  sworn,  as  high  constable,  in  any 
barony  or  half-barony ;  or  as  petty  constable,  in 
any  manor,  ward,  parish,  constablewick,  or  place 
within  the  kingdom :  but  was  to  be  proportionably 
taxed  to  support  the  same.563 

Some  portions  of  this  code  appear  so  gratui- 
tously wicked  and  profligate,  that  it  is  difficult 
even  to  conjecture  what  could  have  been  the 
object  of  the  miscreants  by  whom  they  were  en- 

signor,  and  lessee  or  assignee,  accepting  or  occupying  such 
lands,  to  forfeit  treble  the  yearly  value."*** 

*  "  Every  Papist,  after  the  time  aforesaid,  shall  be  disabled 
to  purchase,  either  in  his  own  name  or  in  the  name  of  any  other, 
to  his  use  or  in  trust  for  him,  any  manors,  lands,  hereditaments, 
or  any  rents  or  profits  out  of  the  same,  or  any  leases  or  terms 
thereof,  other  than  for  a  term  of  years  not  exceeding  thirty-one 
years,  whereon  a  rent,  not  less  than  two-thirds  of  the  improved 
yearly  value  at  the  time  of  making  such  lease,  shall  be  reserved 
and  made  payable  during  such  term."584 

i83  2  Geo.  I.  xii.          J81  Robins,  26.          i8i  Idem,  454. 


OPPRESSION.  495 

acted.  So  late  as  the  year  1745,  it  was  provided, 
that  all  marriages  celebrated  by  a  Roman  Catholic 
clergyman,  between  two  Protestants,  or  between 
a  Protestant  and  a  Roman  Catholic,  should  be 
null  and  void,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  without 
any  process,  judgment,  or  sentence  of  the  law 
whatsoever.*  To  what  a  hideous  flood  of  licen- 
tiousness ;  what  overwhelming  immorality ;  what 
bastardizing  of  children ;  what  uncertainty  of  in- 
heritance, must  this  vile  law  have  given  rise ! 

Justices  of  peace  might  summon  any  person, 
suspected  of  having  been  married  by  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest,  or  been  present  at  such  marriage ; 
and  if  such  person  refused  to  attend,  or  to  be 
examined,  or  to  enter  into  recognizance  to 
prosecute,  he  was  liable  to  three  years  imprison- 
ment.5*6 

Dreading  lest  the  piratical  and  sanguinary  sys- 
tem they  were  establishing  should  lead  to  insur- 
rection, in  which  they  might  meet  the  fate  their 
tyranny  deserved,  the  "  ascendency"  early  deter- 
mined to  secure  themselves  from  that  conse- 
quence, by  robbing  and  plundering  the  Catholics 

*  "  After  the  first  of  May,  1 746,  every  marriage  celebrated 
by  a  Popish  priest,  between  a  Papist  and  any  person  who  hath 
been,  or  hath  professed  himself  or  herself  to  be  a  Protestant, 
at  any  time  within  twelve  months  of  such  celebration  of  mar- 
riage, or  between  two  Protestants,  shall  be  null  and  void,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  without  any  process,  judgment,  or  sen- 
tence of  the  law  rvhatsoever."587 

586  Robins,  389.  s87  2  Geo.  IT.  xiii.  19. 


496  V1NDICLE  HIBERNICJE. 

of  their  arms;*  thus  in  a  manner  tying  them 
neck  and  heels,  and  laying  them  prostrate  at 
their  mercy. 

The  laws  on  this  point,  which  was  regarded  as 
vital  to  the  security  of  the  tyrants,  were  of  the 
most  extraordinary  rigour.  Two  justices  of  the 
peace  might  summon  before  them  any  Catho- 
lics, from  the  peer  or  peeress  to  the  lowest 
peasant,  and  examine  them,  on  oath,  not  merely 
on  the  subject  of  arms  in  their  own  possession, 
but  oblige  them  to  turn  informers  against  their 
parents,  children,  friends,  and  neighbours ;  and  if 
they  refused  to  appear,  or,  on  appearing,  refused 
to  give  evidence,  or  turn  informers,  peers  and 
peeresses  were  subject  to  a  penalty  of  three  hun- 
dred pounds,  for  the  first  offence ;  and  for  the 
second,  to  imprisonment  for  life,  and  forfeiture  of 
all  their  goods  !/•$ 

*  "  All  Papists  within  this  kingdom  of  Ireland,  before  the 
1st  of  March  next,  shall  discover  and  deliver  up  to  some  justice 
of  the  peace,  all  their  arms,  armour,  and  ammunition,  of  -what 
kind  soever,  in  their  possession  ;  and  after  that  time,  any  two 
or  more  justices  of  the  peace,  within  their  respective  limits, 
and  all  mayors,  sheriffs  and  chief  officers  of  cities,  &c.  in  their 
liberties,  by  themselves  or  their  warrants,  under  their  hands 
and  seals,  may  search  for,  seize,  or  cause  to  be  searched  for 
and  seized,  and  take  into  their  custody,  all  such  arms,  &c.  as 
shall  be  concealed  in  any  house,  lodging  or  other  places  where 
they  suspect  any  such  to  be."488 

f  "  Two  justices  of  peace,  or  the  magistrate  of  any  corpora- 
tion, are  empowered  to  summon  before  them  any  persons 
whatsoever,  to  tender  them  an  oath,  by  which  they  oblige 

588  Robins,  448. 


HORRIBLE    INJUSTICE.  497 

By  this  law,  the  best  man  in  the  land  might  be 
summoned  by  two  justices  of  the  peace,  at  the 
instance  of  the  lowest  scoundrel,  and  an  oath  ten- 
dered to  him  to  inform  against  his  nearest  or 
dearest  friend.  The  same  oath  might  be  tendered 
to  him  a  second  time,  within  an  hour :  and  if  he 
refused  both  times,  he  was,  ipso  facto,  liable  to 
be  robbed  of  his  goods,  and  subject  to  imprison- 
ment for  life ! ! 

Lest  there  should  be  any  scruples  of  conscience 
among  the  justices,  which  might  prevent  their 
activity  in  the  enforcement  of  such  a  system  of 
rapine,  any  magistrate  who  should  neglect  or  re- 
fuse to  perform  the  duties  it  imposed  on  him, 
was  subject  to  fifty  pounds  penalty.* 

All  wise  legislators  justly  hold,  that  one  of  their 
most  important  duties  is  to  provide  for  the  in- 
struction and  illumination  of  the  people,  under  a 

them  to  discover  all  persons  who  have  any  arms  concealed, 
contrary  to  law.  Their  refusal  or  declining  to  appear,  or,  on 
appearing,  their  refusal  to  inform,  subjects  them  to  the  severest 
penalties.  If  peers  or  peeresses  are  summoned,  (for  they  may 
be  summoned  by  the  bailiff  of  a  corporation  of  six  cottages) 
to  perform  this  honourable  service,  and  they  refuse  to  inform, 
the  Jlrst  offence  is  300/.  penalty ;  the  second  is  premunire,  that 
is  to  say,  imprisonment  for  life,  and  forfeiture  of  all  their  goods. 
Persons  of  an  inferior  order  are  for  the  first  offence  fined  307. 
for  the  second,  they  too  are  subjected  to  premunire."589 

*  "  If  any  justice  or  justices  of  peace,  mayor,  &c.  neglect  or 
refuse  to  execute  any  the  powers  which  they  are  required  by 
this  act  to  put  in  execution,  every  such  justice  shall  forfeit,  for 
every  such  offence,  the  sum  o/*50/."490 

589  Burke,  V.  195.  '*>  Robins,  459. 

63 


498  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 

conviction  that  public  instruction  and  virtue,  igno- 
rance and  vice,  grow  to  maturity  together.  But 
the  Irish  Parliament  doomed  live-sixths  of  the 
nation,  to  which  it  was  given  as  a  curse,  to  per- 
petual and  invincible  ignorance !  To  brutalize 
and  barbarize  those  Helots,  to  plunge  them  into 
the  abysses  of  Cimmerian  darkness,  they  were, 
at  one  stroke,  cut  off  from  education.  The  law 
punished  the  man  who 

"  Taught  the  young  idea  how  to  shoot," 

who  assisted  to  remove  that  brutal  ignorance 
which  prepares  the  mind  for  every  species  of 
vice  and  crime,  as  severely  as  the  man  who 
robbed  altars,  burned  houses,  or  murdered  his 
father  or  mother ! 

This  never-enough-to-be-execrated  code  was 
far  worse  than  Draco's,  which  is 

"  Damn'd  to  everlasting  fame." 

Draco,  barbarous  and  cruel  as  he  was,  in  his  san- 
guinary code,  which  punished  all  crimes  with 
death,  has  never  been  accused  of  punishing  any 
thing  but  crimes.  But  the  worse  than  Draconian 
Irish  legislature  denounced  banishment,  and,  in 
case  of  return,  death,  against  any  Catholic  guilty 
of  the  offence  of  teaching  school ;  instructing 
children  in  learning,  in  a  private  house ;  or  offi- 
ciating as  usher  to  a  Protestant  school-master!* 

*  "  If  any  Papist  shall  publicly  teach  school,  or  instruct  youth 
in  learning  in  any  private  house,  or  shall  be  entertained  to  in~ 
struct  youth,  as  usher  or  assistant  to  any  Protestant  school- 
master, he  shall  be  esteemed  a  Popish  regular  clergyman,  and 


DEPART  !    YE    CURSED  !  499 

The  eternal  laws  of  humanity,  imprinted  on 
our  hearts  by  our  great  Creator,  command  sympa- 
thy for  our  suffering  fellow  creatures,  and,  when 
in  our  power,  the  extension  of  relief  to  their 
miseries.  The  rudest  savages  are  not  insensible 
to  the  sway  of  this  universal  and  sovereign  law. 
They  share  their  slender  pittance  with  the  dis- 
tressed and  suffering  stranger.  Christ  Jesus  him- 
self, in  the  most  emphatical  language  he  ever 
used,  in  "  words  that  burn,"  denounces  "  ever- 
lasting fire"  against  those  who  refuse  obedience 
to  this  law : 

'V-l'Ifc-  \htQi-iLt  '>iri 

"  Depart  from  me,  ye  Cursed !  into  everlasting  fire,  prepared 

for  the  devil  and  his  angels  !  for  I  was  an  hungered,  and  ye 
gave  me  no  meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  no  drink  :  I 
was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  not  in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed 
me  not ;  sick,  and  in  prison,  and  ye  visited  me  not." 

This  divine  lesson  the  impious  and  barbarous 
Irish  legislature,  with  a  wicked  hypocrisy,  which 
enhanced  the  atrocity  of  the  deed,  trampled  under 
foot,  under  pretence  of  propagating,  in  its  utmost 
purity,  the  religion  of  that  Jesus  Christ,  of  whose 
precepts  and  maxims  their  laws  were  an  undevi- 
ating  violation.  By  those  laws,  if  Francis  Xavier, 
Fleury,  Bossuet,  Bourdaloue,  Fenelon,  Massillon, 
cardinal  Pole,  archbishop  Carroll,  bishop  Cheve- 
reux,  Mr.  Matignon,  Mr.  Harding,  Mr.  Fleming, 
or  Mr.  Grsessel,  were  in  Ireland,  and  "  hungry,  and 

prosecuted  as  such,  and  shall  incur  such  penalties  and  forfei- 
tures as  any  Popish  regular  convict  is  liable  unto"5'31 

591  Robins,  612. 


500  VINDICLE    HIBERNICJK. 

thirsty,  and  naked,  and  sick,  and  in  prison,"  at  the 
last  gasp  of  existence,  for  want  of  the  common 
necessaries  of  life,  the  man  who  three  times  ad- 
ministered relief,  would  be  robbed  of  his  entire 
estate,  real  and  personal,  as  a  reward  for  his  cha- 
nty !*  Can  the  vocabulary  of  execration  afford 
terms  of  reproach  adequate  to  brand  the  turpitude 
of  such  a  system,  and  of  its  vile  authors  ? 

Throughout  the  whole  habitable  globe,  even 
among  the  most  barbarous  of  the  human  race, 
respect  and  reverence  for  parents  have  been  uni- 
versally inculcated,  except  in  devoted  Ireland. 
The  fifth  command  of  the  decalogue  explicitly 
orders, 

"  Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be 
long  upon  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee." 

This  is  "the  first  command  with  a  promise  of 
reward"  for  its  observance ;  but  no  punishment 
is  annexed  to  the  violation.  Deuteronomy,  how- 
ever, goes  further,  and  pronounces  a  curse  on 
those  who  even  slight  their  parents  : 

"  Cursed  be  he  that  setteth  light  by  his  father  or  mother." 

And  Jesus  Christ,  the  light  of  whose  Gospel  the 

*  "  Any  person  that  shall,  from  the  first  of  May,  knowingly 
conceal  or  entertain  any  such  archbishop,  bishops,  &c.  hereby 
required  to  depart  out  of  this  kingdom,  or  that  after  the  said 
day  shall  come  into  this  kingdom,  shall,  for  the  first  offence, 
forfeit  trventy  pounds  ;  for  the  second,  double  that  sum;  and  if 
he  offend  the  third  time,  shall  forfeit  all  his  lands  and  tenements 
of  freehold  or  inheritance  during  his  life;  and  also  all  his  goods 
and  chattels  !! .'"«" 

**  Robins,  452. 


ROB  YOUR  FATHER  AND  MOTHER.     501 

Irish  legislators  pretended  to  spread,  renewed 
and  enforced  the  command, 

u  Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother."593 

But  what  was  the  dictate  of  the  hideous  code  "  to 
prevent  the  growth  of  Popery  ?"  Did  it  support 
or  countenance  the  observance  of  this  holy  law  of 
Moses  and  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  No  :  it  said,  in  lan- 
guage fit  for  pirates  and  robbers,  Forswear  your 
religion,  and  then  you  have  legal  sanction  to 
plunder  your  father  and  mother,  and  bring  their 
gray  hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave.*  In  return 
for  all  their  cares,  their  solicitudes,  their  pains, 
their  affection,  strip  them  of  that  property  which 
ought  to  support  your  brothers  and  sisters.  This 
was  the  unequivocal  spirit  of  Irish  legislation,  on 
the  subject  of  filial  duty. 

When  any  child  or  children  of  any  Roman  Ca- 
tholic, other  than  the  eldest  son,  whose  case  was 
provided  for  before,  conformed  to  the  Protestant 
religion,  the  father  was  obliged  to  give  in,  upon 
oath,  to  the  court  of  chancery,  a  statement  of  the 
real  and  bona  fide  value  of  all  his  estate,  real  and 
personal ;  and  make  such  provision  for  the  pre- 

*  "The  eldest  son,  so  conforming,  immediately  acquires,  and 
in  the  life  time  of  his  father,  the  permanent  part,  what  our  law 
calls  the  reversion  and  inheritance  of  the  estate,  and  he  dis- 
charges it  by  retrospect ;  and  annuls  every  sort  of  voluntary 
settlement  made  by  the  father  ever  so  long  before  his  conver- 
sion. This  he  may  sell  or  dispose  of  immediately,  and  alienate 
it  from  the  family  for  ever."5*4 

593  Matth.  xix.  19.  #*  Burke,  V.  187. 


502  VINDICIJE    HIBERNICJE. 


sent  and  future  maintenance  of  the  conforming 
child  or  children,  as  the  court  might  order.595 


Of  this  code  of  laws,  it  may  be  fairly  averred, 
that,  had  all  the  penitentiaries  in  Europe  been 
ransacked,  to  form  a  legislature  for  Ireland,  —  had 
Cartouche  and  his  gang  taken  possession  of  the 
Parliament-house,  they  could  not  have  devised  a 
more  rapacious  or  cruel  system. 

There  is  hardly  a  code  in  the  world,  that  does 
not  afford  some  instances  of  unjust  and  immoral 
laws,  enacted  in  moments  of  delusion  or  faction. 
But  this;  is  the  only  one  universally  and  undevi- 
atingly  profligate  and  depraved,  —  of  which  every 
provision  and  paragraph  violated  some  law  of 
God  or  man,  and  the  plainest  dictates  of  eternal 
justice,  —  and  which  legalized  robbery,  and  punish- 
ed with  death  acts  of  humanity,  teaching  schools, 
the  celebration  of  marriage,  §c.  fyc. 

The  professed  object  of  the  hypocritical  tyrants 

who  framed  this  "  ferocious  system,"  as  Burke  ap- 

• 

propriately  styles  it,  was  to  rescue  the  objects  of 
its  rapacity  from  the  darkness  of  Popish  idolatry. 
But  they  might  worship  Jupiter  Ammon,  Juno, 
Venus,  Mars,  Bacchus,  and  Apollo,  with  the  Ro- 
mans ;  the  sun,  with  the  Guebres  ;  or  Apis,  with 
the  Egyptians  ;  they  might  even  disbelieve  in  God 
altogether.*  Provided  they  forswore  transub- 
stantiation  and  the  Pope's  authority,  they  became 
pure  and  immaculate  ;  their  property  and  persons 

*  See  Burke's  view  of  the  subject,  supra,  vii.     595  Robins,  459. 


THE  MOTE  AND  THE  BEAM.       503 

were  secure ;  and,  under  the  forms  and  ceremo- 
nies of  the  law  of  the  land,  they  then  acquired 
a  right  to  rob  and  plunder  the  blind  idolatrous 
Papists  whom  they  had  abandoned. 


Whoever  has  travelled  through  these  pages, 
and  duly  considered  the  villany  of  those  statutes, 
and  of  the  legislators  by  whom  they  were  enacted; 
the  horrible  scenes  of  oppression,  fraud,  and  mur- 
der, which  they  could  not  fail  to  produce ;  the 
universal  demoralization  that  must  have  followed 
their  operation, — cannot  fail  to  agree  with  Tillot- 
son,  that,  so  far  as  respected  the  devoted  island 
whose  fate  we  deplore,  it  were 

"  Better  there  we're  no  revealed  religion,  and  that  human 
nature  were  left  to  the  conduct  of  its  own  principles  and  incli- 
nations, which  are  much  more  mild  and  merciful,  much  more 
for  the  peace  and  happiness  of  human  society,  than  to  be  actu- 
ated by  a  religion  that  inspires  men  with  so  vile  a  Jury,  and 
prompts  them  to  commit  such  outrages.'1''596 

Tillotson  applied  this  strong  position  to  other 
parts  of  Christendom  ;  but  shut  his  eyes  to  the 
wickedness,  the  profligacy,  and  the  immorality  of 
the  code  in  force  in  his  native  country;* — so 
much  easier  is  it  to  take  the  mote  out  of  our 
neighbour's  eye,  than  the  beam  out  of  our  own.  * 

We  have  now,  however,  in  this  enlightened 
country,  bigoted  clergymen,  who  cant,  and  whine, 
and  turn  up  the  whites  of  their  eyes,  deploring 

*  The   English  laws  on  this   subject  were  as  wicked  and 
cruel  as  the   Iribh. 
596  Tillotson,  ill.  19. 


504  V1NDICIJE    IIIBERNIC.&. 

and  reviling  the  persecuting  spirit  of  Madrid,  and 
Lisbon,  and  Paris,  and  Rome,  and  Goa ;  but,  like 
Tillotson,  deaf,  and  blind,  and  dumb,  to  the  atro- 
cious system  of  persecution  for  ages  in  operation 
in  England  and  Ireland.  If  they  attend  to  the 
maxim  of  Jesus  Christ,  "  Let  him  that  is  without 
sin  cast  the  first  stone,"  they  will  lay  an  eternal 
embargo  on  their  tongues,  upon  this  odious,  this 
detestable  subject.  Sat  verbum. 

Here  we  close : — and  ask  the  reader,  to  what- 
ever nation,  religion,  party,  or  faction,  he  may 
belong,  whether  there  ever  existed  a  much  more 
horrible  system  of  tyranny  ?  And  whether  resis- 
tance to  it,  in  any  of  its  stages,  whatever  might 
have  been  the  result,  would  not  have  deserved  a 
nobler  name  than  the  odious  one  of  Rebellion? 

"  Rebellion  !  foul,  dishonouring  word, 

Whose  wrongful  blight  so  oft  has  stain' d 
The  holiest  cause  that  tongue  or  sword 

Of  mortal  ever  lost  or  gain'd. 
How  many  a  spirit,  born  to  bless, 

Has  sunk  beneath  that  withering  name, 
Whom  but  a  day's,  an  hour's  success 

Had  wafted  to  eternal  fame  ! 
As  exhalations,  when  they  burst 
From  the  warm  earth,  if  chill'd  at  first, 
If  check'd  in  soaring  from  the  plain, 
Darken  to  fogs  and  sink  again ; 
But,  if  they  once  triumphant  spread 
Their  wings  above  the  mountain-head, 
Become  enthron'd  in  upper  air, 
And  turn  to  sun-bright  glories  there  !" — Lalla  Rookh* 

THE  END. 


INDEX. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT  of  Parliamentary  infamy,  252. 

Act  of  indemnity  and  free  pardon,  274. 

Acts  of  charity,  punished  with  forfeiture,  499. 

Age  of  forgery  and  perjury,  289. 

Amboyna,  massacre  at,  remarks  upon,  xxix. 

Andre,  case  of,  misunderstood,  31. 

Anniversary  sermons,  inflammatory  purposes  of,  28. 

Antichrist,  definition  of,  480. 

Antichrist  at  Madrid,  Lisbon,  and  Goa,  480. 

Antichrist  in  Geneva,  London,  Scotland,  Holland,  and  Ireland, 

481. 

Archbishop  of  Dublin,  free  examination  of  his  conduct,  146. 
Archbishops,  bishops,  vicars-general,  &c.  liable  to  be  hanged,  if 

they  returned  to  Ireland,  488. 

Barrymore,  lord,  cruelty  of,  467. 

Beale,  the  tailor,  pretended  plot  of,  294. 

Bedingfield,  Henry,  pretended  plot  of,  297. 

Bedlow,  William,  a  most  infamous  villain,  292. 

Bingham,  captain,  statement  of,  23,  32. 

Bigotry,  religious,  wonderful  prevalence  of,  48. 

Bloody  breakfast,  467. 

Boroughs,  forty  new  ones  created  at  once,  249. 

Bunker's  Hill,  battle  of,  discrepancy  respecting,  31. 

Burnet,  bishop,  testimony  of,  respecting  court  of  wards,  121. 

Carleton,  bishop  of  Chichester,  sorry  tale  of,  174. 
Carte,  fraudulent  statement  of,  107. 
Carte,  gross  inconsistency  of,  109,  110,  393. 
Carte,  obliquity  of,  217. 
Carte,  imbecile  views  of,  124,  131,  203. 
Casliel,  slaughter  in  cathedral  of,  465. 
Castlemain,  lord,  accused  of  a  plot,  298. 
Cessation  with  the  Irish,  reprobated  by  the  ruling  party,  353. 

64 


INDEX. 

Cessation,  resolution  of  English  Parliament  against,  355. 

Charles  I.  base  perfidy  and  ingratitude  of,  134, 135, 139,  148, 149. 

Civil  wars,  three,  92. 

Civil  war  in  England,  causes  and  consequences  of,  95. 

Civil  war  in  Scotland,  causes  and  consequences  of,  93. 

Civil  war  in  Ireland,  provocation  to,  and  ruinous  consequences 

of,  97. 

Clarendon,  fraudulent  statements  of,  107,  137. 
Clergy,  Irish,  banishment  of,  125. 
Cobler  of  Aggavvam,  murderous  exhortations  of,  473. 
Collusion,  base,  of  Charles  I.  and  lord  Falkland,  143. 
Comparison  between  the  provocation  of  Ireland  in  1641.  and  that 

of  America  in  1776,  99. 
Confiscation  of  Irish  estates,  the  grand  object  of  the  governments 

of  England  and  Ireland,  63,  64,  65. 

Confiscation,  the  primary  object  of  the  lords  justices,  349. 
Consequences  of  the  civil  wars  in  England  and  France,  nearly 

similar,  103. 
Conspiracies,  forged,  a  source  of  confiscation,  27,  177,  178,  179, 

et  passim. 

Coote,  Sir  Charles,  a  sanguinary  ruffian,  337. 
Coote,  Charles,  absurd  testimony  of,  47. 
Courts  of  justice  in  Ireland,  prostituted  state  of,  87. 
Cox,  Richard,  murders  and  robberies  of,  468. 
Crosby,  Piers,  hard  case  of,  256. 
Cromwell,   Oliver,  murderous  cruelty  and   base  hypocrisy  of, 

459,  460. 

Cruelty,  remorseless,  of  the  Irish  government,  74. 
Curry,  Dr.  his  view  of  the  flight  of  Tyrone  and  Tyrconnel,  173. 
Curry's  history,  excellence  of.  xviii. 
Curse  against  traitors,  from  Lalla  Rookh,  476. 

Danger-field,  a  notorious  villain  and  perjurer,  299. 
Davies,  Sir  John,  base  quibbles  and  chicanery  of,  190,  191. 
Dead  bodies,  after  six  weeks,  rising  out  of  the  water,  en  masse, 

38,  39,  40. 

Dead  bodies,  eaten  by  the  starving  Irish,  78. 
Dead  bodies,  free  from  putrefaction  for  four  or  five  weeks,  425. 
Debate,  freedom  of,  grossly  violated,  255. 
De  La  Hide,  Walter,  cruel  persecution  of,  73. 
Desmond,  earl,  horrible  persecution  of,  68,  70. 


INDEX. 

Desmond  estates,  confiscation  of,  72. 

Desolation,  perpetrated  in  Scotland,  by  the  earl  of  Essex,  234. 
Desolation,  perpetrated  in  France  and  Spain,  by  the  English,  237. 
Devastation  and  desolation,  perpetrated  on  the  Irish,  75,  76,  77. 
Divines  of  the  assembly,  atrocious  calumny  of,  359. 
Drogheda,  massacre  at,  460. 

Education,  forbidden  in  Ireland,  under  pain  of  death,  498. 

English  by  descent,  as  cruelly  persecuted  in  Ireland  as  the  abori- 
ginals, 67. 

English  title  to  Ireland,  twenty -six  hundred  years  old,  268. 

Estated  Catholics,  only  four  hundred  in  the  insurrection,  435. 

Evidence,  hearsay,  399,  408,  409,  414. 

Exaggeration  and  falsehood,  hideous  instances  of,  362. 

Falsehood,  detected,  367. 

Famine,  produced  by  the  devastation  and  desolation  of  the  Irish 
government  forces,  78,  79. 

Father  and  mother,  robbery  of,  encouraged  by  law,  500. 

Fines,  ruinous,  exacted,  116. 

Forgeries,  manifest,  received  as  solid  proofs,  27. 

Fosterage  and  marriage  made  treason,  263. 

France,  conquest  of,  how  effected,  475. 

Frauds  and  falsehoods,  respecting  the  state  of  Ireland,  detailed 
by  Clarendon,  Carte,  and  Leland,  107. 

Frauds,  in  representation  under  Elizabeth,  242,  243 ;  under 
James  I.  249. 

Ghosts  screaming  for  revenge,  42,  43. 
Grenville,  Richard,  a  ferocious  ruffian,  457. 
Gurmond,  bestows  Ireland  on  Heber,  268. 

Historians  of  Irish  affairs,  vile  views  of,  35. 

Historical  writing,  difficulties  of,  17,  32,  24 ;  perversion  of,  18. 

Horse  thieves  excited  and  protected  by  law,  486. 

House  of  Lords,  corrupt  management  of,  254. 

Hume,  disgraceful  and  dishonourable  conduct  of,  395. 

Hume,  striking  error  and  mis-statement  of,  186. 

Inconsistency,  gross,  of  Carte,  Warner,  and  Leland,  109,  110. 
Indemnity  and  free  pardon,  fraudulent  act  of,  274. 
Indictment,  bills  of,  one  thousand  found  in  two  days,  84,  86. 
Indictment,  definition  of,  88. 
Insurrection  of  1641,  discussed,  313. 


INDEX. 

Intolerance,  various  instances  of,  49. 

Ireland,  a  great  human  slaughter-house,  77. 

Ireland,  state  of,  previous  to  1641,  105,  111. 

Ireton,  a  bloodthirsty  ruffian,  464,  465. 

Irish  history,  deplorable  ignorance  of,  x. 

Irish  history,  extravagantly  falsified,  19. 

Irish  history,  peculiar  feature  of,  19. 

Irish  history,  writers  of,  contradict  each  other,  xix. 

Irish  nation,  victims  of  a  detestable  policy,  35,  36. 

Irish,  utter  extirpation  of,  a  favourite  project  in  England  and 

Ireland,  58,  59,  60,  61. 
Irish,  horrible  sufferings  of,  77. 
Irish,  detestable  calumnies  of,  80. 
Irish  insurrection  of  1641,  perfectly  justifiable  in  the  eyes  of  God 

and  man,  98. 

Irish,  grievous  oppressions  of,  111,  112. 
Irish,  disqualifications  of,  122,  123. 
Irish  Catholics,  petition  of,  to  Charles  I.  142. 
Irish,  depredations  on,  205,  206,  207. 

Irish  character,  strong  testimonies  in  favour  of,  xix.  231,  232, 233_ 
Irish  legislation,  specimen  of,  262,  263. 
•  Irish,  half  a  million  of,  destroyed  in  the  insurrection  of  1641,  98, 

469. 
Irish  oligarchy,  picture  of,  476. 

James  I.  base  ingratitude  of,  117. 

James  I.  hideous  rapacity  and  plunder  of,  180, 184, 185,  200, 201. 

James  I.  shameful  partiality  and  injustice  of,  253. 

Judges  and  jurors,  perjured,  88,  89. 

Judges,  Irish,  profligate  conduct  of,  246,  247. 

Judges,  horrible  malignity  of,  310,  311, 

Juries,  unjustly  constituted,  490. 

Jurors,  ruinously  fined,  152;  pilloried  and  mutilated,  159. 

Justice,  courts  of,  mere  slaughter-houses,  311. 

Law  for  chopping  off  the  heads  of  the  Irish,  263. 

Lawless's  history  of  Ireland,  notice  of,  xxvii. 

Legends,  long  list  of,  426,  427. 

Leland,  gross  inconsistency  of,  109,  110,  115. 

Lelanrl,  gross  errors  of,  187,  188,  189,  294,  202, 

Leland,  obliquity  of,  132,  433. 

Leland,  ridiculous  absurdity  of,  117. 


INDEX. 

Letter-dropping,  an  instrument  of  government,  to  justify  confis- 

cation, 169,  305. 

Little  Belt  and  President,  rencontre  between,  24. 
Loftus,  lord,  hard  case  of,  159. 
Long  Parliament  and  Charles  I.  errors  of,  xxvii. 
Lords  justices  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  peace,  346. 
Lords  justices,  execrable  policy  of,  346,  350. 
Ludlow,  barbarity  of,  451. 

Macauley,  Mrs.  incredible  tales  of,  394. 

Man,  hacked  to  pieces  without  bleeding,  41. 

Marriage  and  fosterage  made  treason,  263. 

Marriages,  most  wickedly  annulled,  495. 

Martial  law,  execution  of,  89. 

Massacre,  pretended,  of  1641,  extravagant  portraits  of,  386. 

Massacre,  pretended  plot  of,  300. 

Massacre  of  the  Protestants,  in  1641,  inquiry  into  the,  360,  371, 

372,  375. 
Maxwell,  Robert,  a  most  notorious  perjurer,  44  ;  gross  contradic- 

tions of,  44,  416. 

May,  Thomas,  gross  falsehoods  of,  369. 
Millions  of  acres,  projected  confiscation  of,  65. 
Milton,  shameful  exaggeration  and  falsehood  of,  29,  31,  47,  xxxiv. 
Monroe,  a  ferocious  ruffian,  456. 
Montross,  cruel  career  of,  471. 
Mountnorris,  lord,  shocking  treatment  of,  160,  161. 
Mountnorris,  lady,  affecting  letter  of,  162. 
Murderous  orders  of  the  lords  justices,  378. 
Murderous  ordinance  of  the  English  Parliament,  380. 
Murders  and  massacre,  legendary  tales  of,  386,  387. 


will  be  lice:"  nits  and  lice  killed  together,  463. 
No  quarters  given  to  the  Irish,  447. 
Noyade  of  the  Irish  rewarded  by  a  gold  medal,  456. 

Parliament,  English,  sanguinary  spirit  of,  356. 
Parliamentary  representation  in  Ireland,  238,  239,  249,  252. 
Parsons  and  Borlase,  rapacity  of,  59. 
Penalty,  for  harbouring  father  or  mother,  56. 
Perjury  and  subornation,  melancholy  progress  of,  304. 
Perjury,  most  atrocious  case  of,  309. 

Perjury,  the  basis  of  nearly  all  the  histories  of  the  insurrection  of 
1641,  37. 


INDEX. 

^*  \        •« 

Petty,  Sir  William,  his  account  of  the  war  of  1641,  435. 

Plot,  pretended,  to  kill  the  earl  of  Northumberland,  &c.  293. 

Plots  and  conspiracies,  forged,  293,  303. 

Points  established  in  this  work,  xiv. 

Popery  laws,  description  of,  478. 

Popery  laws,  d  system  of  rapine,  x. 

Poynings'  law,  view  of,  260. 

President  and  Little  Belt,  rencontre  between,  23. 

Priests,  Catholic,  liable  to  be  hanged,  if  they  returned  to  Ireland, 

483,  484. 

Priests,  liable  to  be  hanged  for  celebrating  marriage,  485. 
Priests  hang  themselves,  in  their  own  defence,  138. 
Proclamation,  for  the  banishment  of  the  Irish  clergy,  126. 
Protestant  ascendency,  pernicious  views  of,  30. 
Proxies,  shameful  abuse  of,  255. 

Queries,  on  the  subject  of  Temple's  legendary  tales,  340. 

Rebellion,  frequent  injustice  of  the  term,  504. 

Recusants,  persecution  of,  112,  113. 

Robbery,  flagrant,  encouraged  by  law,  487,  488,  489,  490,  492. 

Rodgers,  commodore,  statement  of,  24,  32.    . 

Royal  martyr,  conduct  of,  139,  148. 

Rupert,  prince,  decision  and  energy  of,  453. 

Sacrilegious  burglary  and  robbery  of  the  archbishop  and  mayor  of 

Dublin,  129. 

'Savage  fury  of  mobs,  311. 
Scotch,  brotherly  assistance  of,  rewarded,  101. 
Scotch  prisoners,  sent  to  the  mines  in  Guinea,  103. 
Security  of  person  in  Ireland,  151,  212. 

Spencer,  Edmund,  his  execrable  project  to  produce  famine,  79. 
Spirit  of  warfare  on  both  sides,  in  Ireland,  376,  383. 
Spoliation,  private,  223. 

Spoiling  the  Egyptians,  179,  180,  181,  182,  200. 
Star-Chamber  Court,  verdict  of  lord  Suffolk  in,  145. 
St.  John,  Oliver,  persecutes  the  recusants,  112. 
St.  Leger,  a  ferocious  ruffian,  458. 
Strafford,  a  most  unfeeling  tyrant,  153,  154,  155,  156,  157,  159, 

209,  210.     , 

Stratford,  Anthony,  perjuries  of,  420. 
Subornation  of  perjury,  84,  291. 
Suppressio  veri  of  the  English  Parliament,  472. 


INDEX. 

Temple,  Sir  John,  a  legendist  of  the  first  order,  36. 

Temple's  statement  of  the  pretended  conspiracy,  315. 

Temple's  legendary  tales,  analysis  of,  324. 

Temple,  ashamed  of  his  legend,  endeavours  to  suppress  it,  391. 

Temple's  legend,  attempts  to  bolster  up,  405. 

Temple,  a  cheat  and  impostor,  436. 

Thirst,  ravenous,  of  the  blood  of  the  Irish,  58. 

Tichbourne,  Henry,  destroys  man,  woman,  and  child,  for  sixteen 

miles,  458. 

Toleration,  disclaimed  as  an  abomination,  48. 
Travelling  on  the  knees,  to  escape  from  assassins,  402. 
Tyrone  and  Tyrconnel,  flight  of,  171. 

Ulster,  piratical  spoliation  of,  167. 

Usher,  archbishop,  miserable  bigotry  and  intolerance  of,  14Q. 

Wards,  court  of,  oppression  of,  119,  120,  121. 

Wards,  sold  to  the  best  bidder,  120. 

Warfare,  barbarous  system  of,  pursued  by  the  Irish  government, 
437,  443. 

Warner,  Ferdinando,  the  most  impartial  of  the  English  historians 
of  Irish  affairs,  19. 

Warwick,  Sir  Philip,  gross  falsehood  of,  370. 

Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  the  standard  of  religious  per- 
fection, 49. 


ERRATA. 

Page  71,  line  16,  for  destroys,  read  invalidates. 
K      7^     «     iQ^  for  annexed,  read  prefixed. 
"      98,    '*     24,  for  opinions,  read  prejudices. 
"    100,     "     16,  for  *A«  whole,  read  six  counties  of  the. 
"    110,    "      7,  for  deserved,  read  <Aey  wwg-Af  perhaps  have  deserved. 
"    235,    "     10,  for  -wonted,  read  utmost. 

Sundry  other  errors  may  probably  be  found  in  the  work ;  to  which  the 
reader,  it  is  hoped,  will  extend  indulgence. 


REFLECTIONS 


ON    THE    SUIiJKCT    OF 


EMIGRATION    FROM    EUROPE, 


A  VIEW  TO  SETTLEMENT 


UNITED  STATES: 


CONTAIN /NO 


BRIEF  SKETCHES  OF  THE  MORAL   AND  POLITICAL  CHARACTER 
OF  THOSE  STATES. 


"  Where  liberty  dwells— there  is  my  country." 

"  The  only  encouragements  America  holds  out  to  strangers,  are — a  good  climate, 
"  fertile  soil,  wholesome  air  and  water,  plenty  of  provisions,  good  pay  for  labour,  kind 
"  neighbours,  good  laws,  a  free  government,  and  a  hearty  welcome.  The  rest  depends 
"  on  a  mm\'-j  industry  and  virtues." 


Homo  sum—humani  d  me  nil  alienum  puto. 


BY  M.  CAREY, 

MEMBER   OF   THE    AMERICAN    PHILOSOPHICAL,    AND  OF  THE  AMERICAN    ANTIQUARIAN    SOCIETY, 

AND   AUTHOR   OF   THE    OLIVE   BRANCH,    VINDICIJE    HIBEKNIO.tt,    ESSAYS  ON    BANKING, 

ON    POLITICAL    ECONOMY,    AND   ON    INTKRNAL    IMPROVBMKNT. 


ORIGINALLY    PRINTED    IN    PHILADELPHIA. 

TO    WHICH    ABE    NOW    ADDKD 

THE  ENGLISH  EDITOR'S  COMMENTS  ON  THE  SUBJECT; 

-TOGETHER   WITH 

IMPORTANT  ADVICE  TO   EMIGRANTS,   AND  CAUTIONS  AGAINST  IMPOSITIONS 
PRACTISED  IN  THE  OUTPORTS. 


LIVERPOOL: 

RK-PRINTED  BY  E.  SMITH  AND  CO.,   75,  LORD-STREET. 

1827. 
PRICE  NINEPENCE. 


ADVERTISEMENT 

TO   THE    FIRST    AMERICAN   EDITION. 

The  writer  of  this  publication  IMS  consulted  three  or  four  small  works,  written  on 
the  same  subject,  particularly  a  valuable  one,  "  Hints  to  Emigrants,"  written,  he 
believes,  by  Dr.  Mac  Neven ;  and  has  availed  himself  of  such  matter  as  they  con- 
tained, likely  to  answer  the  important  purpose  he  had  in  view.     He  has  likewise  con- 
sulted several  intelligent  friends,  who  have  enabled  him  to  correct  some  mistakes,  into 
which  he  had  inadvertently  falkn.    But  all  his  care  and  attention  may  have  been 
insufficient  to  secure  him  from  error  ;  and  as  errors  in  this  case  might  lead  estimable 
men  into  irretrievable  losses  and  difficulties,  he  has  determined  to  print  but  one  hun- 
dred copies  of  this  edition,  and  to  distribute  them  gratuitously  among  citizens  whose 
experience  and  knowledge  may  enable  them  to  decide  accurately  on  the  subject,  and 
whom  he  hereby  respectfully  solicits  to  communicate  such  errors  as  they  » 
or  such  additional  information  as  they  may  judge  necessary  to  complet 
developing  the  inducements  to  immigration  into  this  country. 

To  all  such  communications  he  pledges  himself  to  pay  due  attention,  and  to  decide 

on  them  according  to  his  most  mature  judgment,  but  by  no  means  to  copy  them  ser- 

vikly,  contrary  to  that  judgment. 

Philadelphia,  May  24,  1826. 


ADVERTISEMENT 

TO    THE   SECOND   AMERICAN   EDITIOK. 

m 

The  communications  of  a  few  friends,  and  a  further  and  more  elaborate  considera- 
tion of  the  subject,  have  enabkd  the  writer  to  make  various  important  additions  to, 
and  corrections  in,  this  pamphlet,  He  hopes  he  may  say,  without  vanity,  that  what- 
ever may  be  Us  defects,  it  carries  with  it  evidence  of  fairness  of  intention. 

June  10,  1826. 


ADDRESS 

OF    THE 

PUBLISHERS  OF  THIS  (THE  ENGLISH)  EDITION. 


WE  have  singular  pleasure  in  laying  this  pampJdet  before  the  British  public. 
We  have  frequently  felt  reluctant  to  offer  any  advice  of  our  own  respecting  Emigra- 
tion ;  and  many  of  the  works  me  have  read  on  the  subject  have  evidently  been  dictated 
by  very  partial  feelings,  or  have  been  put  forth  by  ignorant  bookmakers,  as  Peter 
Pindar's  pedlar  hawked  about  hi»  razors,  which  were  not  intended  for  use,  but  for 
sale.  Advice  on  such  a  subject,  unless  it  flow  from  the  best  sources,  may  lead  to 
most  ruinous  consequences :  like  the  frolic  of  the  boys  with  the  frogs,  in  the  f able,  it 
may  be  sport  for  one  party,  but  death  to  the  other.  The  American  publication,  how- 
ever, which  me  have  here  reprinted,  appears  to  us  to  be  a  fair,  and,  indeed,  interesting 
statement  of  both  sides  of  the  important  question  of  emigration  ;  the  best  motives 
appear  to  have  actuated  its  author ;  and  me  feel  conscious  of  endeavouring  to  dis- 
charge a  pulilic  duty,  in  extending  its  circulation  into  our  native  country. 

Admiring,  as  me  do,  the  candour  with  which  the  able  and  experienced  author  has 
given  his  opinions  to  the  public,  and  appreciating  most  higldy  the  value  of  the 
information  he  has  afforded,  me  ^do  not  feel  any  necessity  to  detain  the  reader  long 
from  the  perusal  of  the  work;  but  we  cannot  refrain  from  noticing  one  or  two 
points  on  which  a  difference  of  opinion  may  exist,  without  at  all  affecting  the  general 
question ;  and  offering  some  advice  on  matters  of  a  local  nature,  wliich  may  be 
useful  to  the  emigrant  before  lie  quits  these  shores. 

It  will  be  observed,  that  the  author  ascribes  the  distresses  of  our  industrious  and 
skilful  countrymen,  principally,  to  the  increase  of  machinery,  and  brings,  in  aid  of 
his  opinion,  a  statement  of  the  gradual  increase  of  tlie  poor-rates  during  the 
period  of  the  gradual  increase  of  mechanical  power.  We  are  not  convinced  of  the 
applicability  of  the  illustration.  We  should  rather  ascribe  tlie  privations  of  the 
British  people  to  tlie  increase  of  taxation ;  and,  in  contemplating  the  growth  of  the 
national  debt  and  the  enomutus  extension  of  the  civil,  military,  and  ecclesiastical 
establishments  of  the  country,  we  should  refer  not  only  to  the  gradual  increase  of  the 
poor-rates,  but  to  a  correspondent  increase  of  crime,  as  the  proofs  of  our  position  : 
such  lamentable  increase  having  taken  place,  notwithstanding  the  exertion  of  the 
immense  mechanical,  in  addition  to  tlie  natural,  power  of  the  people ;  for  we  hold, 
that  in  the  absence  of  taxation,  or  of  any  similar  means  by  which  property  is  taken 
from  the  producer,  without  giving  him  an  equivalent,  all  productive  power  would 
alike  contribute  to  increase  the  wealth  of  the  community  at  large ;  so  that  the  addi- 
tion of  mechanical  to  muscular  power  would,  instead  of  being  an  evil,  be  an  auxiliary 
source  of  good.  All  revenue  is  derived  from  labour,  and  the  actual  producer  of 
value,  however  humbly  employed,  pays  the  grtater  portion  of  the  revenue,  either  in 
direct  or  indirect  taxes,  or  in  the  prici  of  his  bread.  If  then  ive  imagine,  even  in 
the  present  state  of  the  country,  that  the  laljourer  shall  henciforth  have  the  neces- 
saries of  life  free  from  tlte  effects  of  "taxation ;  in  other  words,  if  we  suppose  that 
from  this  time  that  portion  of  the  revenue  which  he  pays  shall  remain  at  his  on-n 
disposal,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  such  a  change  would  afford  instant  employ- 
ment to  all  who  sought  it,  for  it  would  enable  millions,  who  are  now  not  half  fed, 
nor  Italf  clothed,  to  become  the  best  customers  to  farmers  and  manufacturers. 
The  people,  in  fact,  would  be  customers  to  each  otlter,  for  they  would  litv  well  and 
dress  well.  At  present  the  Debt,  tlte  State,  and  tlte  Church  deprive  than  of  the 
means. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  the  author,  that,  when  a  population  becomes  excessive,  those 
who  emigrate  confer  a  benefit  on  tlutse  who  remain;  and  in  this  doctrint;  taken  in 
the  abstract,  we  perfectly  agree :  but  when  it  is  urged  as  an  argument  for  emigration 
from  any  particular  country,  me  must  be  careful  that  the  pninises  wist  before  nx 
ad  upon  the  conclusion.  In  Great  Britain,  for  instance,  it  may  be  said,  that  an 
excess  of  population  renders  emigration  dtsh  atAe ;  but  n-e  suspect  the  fact  tube,  that 
an  excess  of  unprodiu-tive  consumers,  living  <m  the  labour  of  the  productive,  (tcfio 
are  thereby  deprived  of  many  of  the  comforts  <>J  life,)  oecanum*  the  appearance  of  a 
Kupo-dbuittlanl,  because  distressed,  ]H>i>itl<ttion.  To  us  it  w  ciidatf,  that  n  niiiyni 


iv  ADDRESS. 

tion  be  resorted  to,  for  the  relief  of  those  who  remain,  it  ought  to  be  confined  to  the 
innumerable  idle  and  expensive  persons  who,  in  this  country,  give  no  value  for  the 
abundance  of  good  things  which  they  derive  from  an  industrious  but  abused  people, 
and  for  which,  in  any  other  country  under  heaven,  they  would  be  obliged  to  work. 
If  these  would  only  depart,  leaving  tJie  produce  to  the  producers,  we  should  hear  no 
more  of  excessive  population.  As  it  is,  those  who  have  emigrated  during  some  years 
past,  and  those  who  are  likely  to  emigrate  in  years  to  come,  are  precisely  the  persons 
who  can  produce,  and  have  produced,  more  valuables  than  they  have  consumed ;  who 
have  contributed  to  the  common  stock ;  who  have  borne  a  share  of  those  state  burdens 
which  have  pressed,  and  still  press  heavily,  on  every  industrious  shoulder ;  and 
whose  departure,  therefore,  from  under  the  load,  will  leave  fewer  such  shoulders  to 
bear  its  comparatively  severer  pressure.  Emigration,  we  contend,  of  such  people, 
from  such  a  country,  cannot  be  an  advantage,  but  directly  the  contrary,  to  those  who 
remain.  The  honest  and  hard-working  man,  however,  who  finds  the  labour  of  his 
hands  and  the  skill  of  his  head  insufficiently  requited,  and  who  is  anxious,  out  of 
the  natural  fruits  of  his  industry,  to  keep  for  himself  and  his  family  something 
more  than  a  bare  subsistence,  cannot  be  expected  to  be  bound  by  this  consideration 
for  those  who  remain.  Love  of  country,  attachment  to  neighbours  and  friends, 
will  induce  him  to  try,  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time,  every  means  of  securing  his 
own  prosperity  in  his  native  land ;  but  he  feels  that  his  duty  to  himself  and  his 
family  is  paramount  to  all  other  obligations,  and  he  looks  around  him,  not  for  a 
land  of  better  promise,  (that  would  be  difficult  to  find,)  but  for  a  government  which 
would  make  fcss  demand  upon  him. 

With  the  exception  of  the  two  points  upon  which  we  have  offered  the  foregoing 
observations  to  the  consideration  of  the  reader,  we  consider  the  opinions  of  the  author 
of  the  pamphlet  extremely  sound,  and  calculated  to  render  much  benefit  to  those  who 
are  ever  so  remotely  contemplating  the  subject  of  emigration ;  and  we  commit  the 
work  to  the  perusal  of  our  countrymen,  as  a  guide  upon  which  we  believe  they  may 
rely. 

We  cannot  conclude,  without  giving  a  caution  to  all  those  who  decide  upon  going 
abroad,  to  beware  of  the  numerous  impositions  practised  upon  unsuspecting  strangers, 
on  their  arrival  for  the  purpose  of  embarkation,  in  the  outports  of  this  country. 
In  Liverpool  there  are  gangs  of  unprincipled  fellows,  who  attend  the  coaches,  prowl 
about  the  docks  and  piers,  introduce  themselves  to  country-looking  people,  pretend 
to  have  some  knowledge  of  the  places  whence  they  come  and  whither  they  are 
going,  name  some  vessel  in  which  they  have  an  interest,  and,  in  fact,  offer  their 
kindly  services  in  managing  their  outfit,  securing  them  a  passage,  fyc.  fyc.  and  such 
is  their  plausibility,  that,  generally,  by  drawing  tlwm  in  to  drinking  and  gambling, 
but  always  by  some  sort  of  knavery,  they  succeed  in  plundering  their  victims  of  every 
penny  they  possess.  Innumerable  instances  of  such  frauds  have  been  exposed  in 
the  Liverpool  Mercury  during  the  last  twelve  years,  and  many  convictions  of  the 
actors  in  them  have  taken  place ;  still,  however,  such  frauds  continue  to  be  practised, 
and  me  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  are  confined  to  one  port. 

Some  time  ago,  the  American  Chamber  ofJCommerce  in  Liverpool  established  a 
Passengers'  Office,  under  the  management  of  a  respectable  agent,  for  the  purpose  of 
affording  information  to  emigrants,  and  of  preventing  impositions  upon  them. 
We,  therefore,  adtrise  all  persons  going  by  way  of  this  town  to  America,  to  apply  to 
Mr.  FITZHUGH,  at  the  Office,  No.  11,  BROOKS'-SQDARE,  near  the  Custom-house, 
•where  they  may  not  only  engage  a  passage  on  i)te  best  terms,  and  by  the  best  vessels, 
but  may  obtain  the  most  correct  information  as  to  laying  in,  their  sea  stores  and 
obtaining  decent  lodgings  while  in  port.  From  this  line  of  proceeding,  no  pretences 
ought  to  induce  them  to  swerve ;  and  in  purchasing  their  outfit,  tiiey  ought  to  apply 
to  tJie  most  respectable  tradesmen,  whose  names  tlisy  can  only  learn  with  certainty 
from  persons  of  known  reputation.  In  other  outports,  as  well  as  here,  the  rule  to 
be  uniformly  observed  is — TRUST  NOT  TO  APPEARANCES,  NOR  TO  THE  PRETENCES 

OF  STRANGERS,   BUT    SEEK  INFORMATION    AT   THE    BEST   AND  PUBLICLY  KNOWN 
SOURCES. 

Liverpool,  April  6l/i,  1827- 


PKLFACL;. 


THE  following  pages  are  respectfully  submitted  to  the  consideration 
of  such  of  the  inhabitants  of  Europe  as  find  themselves  crowded 
by  exuberant  population,  and  contemplate  trying  their  fortunes  in 
foreign  countries.  They  contain  a  naked,  unvarnished  tale  of  the 
situation  of  a  country  blest  with  every  variety  of  soil,  climate, 
and  agricultural  and  mineral  productions — intersected  by  most 
magnificent  rivers — and  with  a  sea-coast  5,000  miles  in  extent — 
a  country  which,  two  hundred  years  ago,  was  a  mere  desert — 
which,  fifty  years  ago,  contained  only  about  2,500,000  of  souls, 
and  was  in  a  state  of  colonial  dependence  on  the  most  powerful 
nation  in  Europe — but  which  now  contains  twenty-four  distinct 
sovereignties,  and  12,000, 000  souls — is  thesecondmaritimeand  com- 
mercial power  in  the  world,  and  enjoys  the  freest  government  that 
ever  existed, — a  country,  in  fine,  which  only  requires  a  sound  po- 
licy to  elevate  it  gradually  to  the  highest  rank  among  the  nations 
of  the  earth. 

I  have  been  induced  to  undertake  this  publication  in  the  hope 
of  rendering  essential  service  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  This 
hope  has  been  sufficient  incentive. — Should  it  be  realized,  the  re- 
sult will  be  abundant  reward.  But  sanguine  temperaments  are 
liable  to  frequent  disappointments.  I  may,  therefore,  be  wholly 
deceived  in  my  expectations,  as  this  essay  ma)'  fall  still-born  from 
the  press.  The  intention,  in  that  case,  will,  it  is  presumable,  plead 
an  apology  for  the  unnecessary  intrusion  on  the  public  eye. 

My  object  is  two-fold  ;  it  is  not  merely  to  point  out  the  descrip- 
tion of  persons  to  whom  emigration  to  this  country  would  be  ad- 
vantageous, but  also  to  hold  out  a  beacon  to  those  to  whom  it 
would  be  unadvisable  to  remove  hither.  Many  a  man  in  comfort- 
able circumstances  in  Europe,  allured  by  golden  dreams,  has  ship- 
wrecked his  fortunes  by  change  of  hemisphere. 

While  the  United  States  have  the  capacity*  of  maintaining  hun- 

*  It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance,  that,  notwithstanding  this  capacity,  such  is  the  effect 
of  our  wayward  policy,  that  almost  every  avocation  or  pursuit  in  this  country  is  crowded. 
We  have  too  many  lawyers,  too  many  doctors,  too  many  farmers,  too  many  cotton  and 
tobacco  planters,  and  too  many  manufacturers  of  most  descriptions.  The  classc*  for 
which  we  want  supplies  are,  principally  mechanics  and  labourers.  If  any  thing  couldopen 
the  eyes  of  our  statesmen  to  the  necessity  of  a  change  of  system,  this  state  of  thing* 
ought  to  produce  that  effect. 

B 


VI  }'REFACIi. 

dreds  of  millions  of  inhabitants  beyond  their  present  numbers,  that 
is  to  say,  1  repeat,  under  a  st%ind  policy,  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
and  many  c^her  parts  of  Europe,  are  groaning  under  a  super- 
abundant population,  whose  condition,  in  various  countries,  is 
gradually  deteriorating,  by  the  increasing  competition  for  em- 
ployment. It  is  not  a  very  overstrained  figure  to  say,  that  they 
are  literally  devouring  each  other.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  highly 
desirable  that  such  an  understanding  should  prevail  on  the  subject, 
as  will  enable  one  country  to  part  with  what  it  can  so  advanta- 
geously spare,  and  another  to  receive  that  of  which  it  is  in  want, 
and  which  it  can,  of  course,  so  advantageously  receive?  Not 
only  would  the  condition  of  those  emigrating,  but  of  those  who 
remained  behind,  be  improved.  Every  hundred  or  thousand  per- 
sons who  emigrate  from  an  overstocked  country,  increase  the 
value  of  the  labour,  and  improve  the  prospect  of  happiness  of 
those  who  remain.  To  produce  this  happy  result  is  the  object  of 
this  publication. 

Great  Britain  incurs  great  expense  in  promoting  emigration  from 
Ireland  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  to  Canada,  in  order  to 
lessen  the  population  of  tfiat  ill-fated  country.  It  would  be  a 
national  benefit,  therefore,  to  the  British  Government  to  make  an 
opening  for  distressed  Irish  in  this  country,  and  thus  save  it  from 
the  expense  of  their  removal. 

The  superabundance  of  the  unemployed  population  of  Ireland 
arises  from  the  ruinous  policy  of  the  Government,  and  the  extra- 
vagant drains  of  the  national  wealth,  by  the  absentees,  being  no 
less  than  13,500,000  dollars  per  annum.  The  same  effect  is  pro- 
duced in  Great  Britain  by  the  wonderful  improvement  of  machi- 
nery, which  supersedes  the  labour  of  the  working  classes,  reduces 
their  wages,  in  many  cases,  to  the  minimum  of  the  support  of  a 
mere  existence  ;  and  in  some,  even  below  that  wretched  modicum, 
thus  sinking  a  large  proportion  of  them  into  the  degraded  state  of 
paupers. 

Some  of  our  political  economists  are  loud  and  unqualified  in 
their  praise  of  mechanical  improvements,  as  tending  to  increase 
national  wealth  and  resources.  To  a  certain  extent,  and  under 
certain  limitations,  this  doctrine  is  perfectly  correct.  That  they 
have  that  tendency  cannot  be  denied.  But,  alas!  how  dear  the 
purchase,  under  particular  circumstances!  What  masses  of  misery 
have  they  not  produced  in  Great  Britain  !  They  have  sunk  into 
abasement  an  important  part  of  the  population,  and  quadrupled 
the  paupers  of  that  country,  whose  numbers  have  regularly  in- 
creased in  proportion  to  the  improvement  of  machinery.  The 
friends  of  humanity  will  have  no  difficulty  in  deciding  the  question 
between  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  a  system  producing 
such  deleterious  effects.*  Can  any  increase  of  national  wealth 

•  I  should  deeply  regret  were  it  supposed,  from  the  passage  in  the  text,  that  I  entertain 
the  heterodoxlcal  opinion,  that  improvements  in  labour-saving  machinery  are,  on  the 
•whole,  pernicious.  Far  from  it.  They  are,  generally,  indeed  almost  universally ,|salutary. 
In  fact,  were  consumption  to  keep  pace  with  the  power  of  production,  they  would  be  uni- 
versally *o.  But,  as  the  best  things  in  the  world  ma/become  pernicious  by  abuse  or  ex- 


PREFACE.  VJi 

t 

and  resources  compensate  for  the  degradation  and  misery  of  pro- 
bably ten  to  fifteen  per  cent,  of  the  entire  population  of  a  nation? 
If  the  true  art  of  government,  and  the  duty  of  governors,  be  to 
produce  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  of  the  go- 
verned, then  the  extraordinary  extent  of  the  so-much-lauded  im- 
provements in  machinery,  is  any  thing  but  a  blessing  to  a  country 
with  a  crowded  population,  especially  when  there  is  a  difficulty  of 
egress.  If,  however,  that  portion  of  the  population,  who,  by  ma- 
chinery, are  deprived  of  work — their  only  means  of  procuring 
subsistence,  be  enabled  to  find  other  employment  or  to  withdraw 
to  other  countries,  then  the  improvement  produces  nothing  but 
unmixed  good.  Under  a  wise  policy  for  the  protection  of  national 
industry,  such  as  is  pursued  by  all  the  prosperous  nations  of 
Europe,  securing  a  steady  home  market  as  far  as  possible  to  the 
agricultural  citizens,  countries  like  the  United  States,  with  a  po- 
pulation small  in  proportion  to  their  extent,  with  vast  bodies  of 
uncultivated  lands,  labour  dear,  and  land  cheap,  would  derive  im- 
mense advantages  from  improvements  in  machinery.  Why  ?  The 
reason  is  obvious.  Because  the  manufacturers,  deprived  of  em- 
ployment, could  readily  devote  themselves  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil,  and  thus  preserve  a  proper  proportion  between  supply  and 
demand. 

It  cannot  fail  to  be  useful  to  display  the  effects  of  the  improve- 
ments in  question,  by  facts  of  the  most  conclusive  character. 

cess,  so  the  prodigious  improvements  in  machinery,  whenever,  by  depriving  large  bodies  of 
people  of  employment,  they  reduce  them  to  wretchedness  and  beggary,  are  a  public  nui- 
sance, and  frequently  operate  as  perniciously  on  the  interests  of  the  employers  as  the 
employed.  This  is  strongly  exemplified  in  Great  Britain,  at  present,  in  the  cotton  trade. 
Production,  in  consequence  of  its  extraordinary  facility,  outruns  consumption — and  hence 
all  the  markets  in  the  world,  open  to  the  reception  of  British  cotton  fabrics,  are  almost 
constantly  glutted  with  them — and  the  prices  are,  consequently,  reduced  below  a  proper 
remuneration.  Remittances  fail.  Production  is  then  diminished.  Distress  and  desola- 
tion spread  through  the  working  classes,  and  the  wretched  journeymen  are  thrown  on  the 
overseers  of  the  poor  for  support.  If  this  state  of  things  be  a  blessing,  then  the  extreme 
improvements  of  labour-saving  machinery  are  a  blessing  of  the  first  order,  and  cannot  be 
carried  too  far.  But,  "  there's  tb«  rub."  The  following  summary  view  of  the  state  of 
the  cotton  manufacturers,  at  the  date  of  late  advices  from  Liverpool,  extracted  from  the 
National  Gazette  of  May  22nd,  1826,  affords  a  full  confirmation  of  these  doctrines,  however 
repugnant  they  may  appear  to,  and  however  strongly  they  may  be  condemned  by,  the- 
oretical political  economists. 

England — "  The  accounts  of  commercial  embarrassments  and  private  distresses, — the 
"  inevitable  result  of  those  embarrassments, — are,  indeed,  melancholy.  Letters  received 
'in  London  on  the  18th  ult.  from  Manchester,  carried  intelligence  of  the  re-appearance  of 
"  distress  in  that  place.  Between  40  and  50,000  persons  were  out  of  employment,  and 
"  many  almost  in  a  state  of  starvation.  The  want  of  orders  by  the  manufacturers  was 
"  assigned  as  the  cause  of  the  unfortunate  recurrence  of  these  distressing  events.  Unex- 
"  ampled  misery  reigned  among  the  wretched  manufacturers  of  Blackburn.  Thousands 
"  and  tens  of  thousands  were  without  sustenance  or  bread.  Whole  families  in  that  dls- 
"  trict  are  dying  of  want.  The  moan  of  famine  met  the  agonized  ear  from  famished  fa- 
"  thersand  starving  children." 

"  We  are  informed  that,  on  Saturday  last,  the  principal  manufactory  in  the  neigh  bour- 
"  ing  town  of  Tewkesbury  was  closed ;  "  the  owner,  a  man  of  property,  being  determined  no 
"  longer  to  purtue  a  loting  business.  In  contequence  of  this  retolve,  four  hundred  hand*  were 
"  turned  out  of  employment,  and  all  the  loomt  were  called  in,  the  manufactory  being  in  the  stoct- 
"  ing  line.  The  distress  which  this  sudden  and  unexpected  event  has  occasioned,  may  be 
"  better  understood  than  described,  when  we  add,  that  the  rates  and  taxes  in  that  parish 
"  are  computed  to  amount  to  17s.  in  the  poimd.  Thej  head  of  the  manufactory  WM  Mr. 
"  Terrett." — Cheltenham  Chronicle. 


Vlll 


PREFACE. 


Arkwright's  ce]ebraled  machinery  was  patented  in  1768,  but  was 
not  brought  to  perfection  till  1775.  Let  us  see  its  effect  on  the 
poor  rates,  and  on  the  working  part  of  the  population. 


Expended  for  the  Poor. 

Families  relieved. 

1740 

£. 
700,000 
1,306,000 
1,521,732 
1,912,24,1 
4,077,891 
6,129,844 
7,329,594 
5,772,988 

Dollars- 
—         3,150,000 

725,566 
939,977 

1770  

—         5.877,000 

1776  

—         6,847,894 

1785  

—         8.605,084 

1803  

=       18,349,509 
—      27,684,298 

1815     

1819-20  

—       32,983,673 

1822-23    

—      25,978,44.6 

The  reduction  in  1822-23  probably  arose  from  the  great  reduc- 
tion of  the  prices  of  provisions. 

That  this  frightful  increase  of  pauperism  and  misery,  and  of 
poor  rates,  is  the  result  of  the  increase  and  improvement  of  ma- 
chinery, cannot,  I  think,  for  a  moment,  be  questioned.  It  is  as- 
serted that  the  machinery  at  present  in  use  in  Great  Britain,  pro- 
duces as  much  manufactures  as  would  require  above  200,000.000 
of  people  to  execute.  The  obvious  effects  of  this  astonishing 
productiveness  are,  I  repeat,  to  diminish  the  demand  for  manual 
labour — increase  the  competition  among  the  labouring  classes — 
force  them  to  underbid  each  other — reduce  the  rate  of  their  wages 
— and  thus  entail  on  them  distress  and  misery. 

In  order  Co  show  the  effect  of  the  increase  of  machinery  on  the 
wages  of  those  employed  in  the  departments  of  industry  in  which 
it  is  most  extensively  used,  I  annex  the  following  extracts  from 
Tooke's  "  Thoughts  on  High  and  Low  Prices."  I  regret  that  his 
tables  extend  no  further  back  than  to  1810,  as  there  is  every 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  previous  reductions  were  still  greater 
than  those  subsequent  to  that  period.  His  tables  close  with  the 
year  1820. 


1810. 

1815. 

1820. 

Fine  spinners,  per  week  

42s.  6J. 

32s.  Od. 

32s.  Od 

11     3 

10    0 

•     9     o 

W^eavin"  Nankeen  

16    3 

13     2 

9    6 

10  10 

8     3 

Manchester  80  reed,  6-4ths   

14    0 

TO     3 

6    9 

Tt  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  wages  of  journeymen  and  por- 
ters employed  in  other  branches  than  those  interfered  with  by  ma- 
chinery, have  undergone  no  material  alteration,  and  that  some  of 
them  have  even  been  enhanced.  The  wages  of  blockmakers  14s. 
per  week;  dyers  and  dressers,  15s. ;  tailors,  18s.  6d. ;  shoemakers, 
16s.;  porters,  18s.;  packers,  20s.;  whitesmiths,  25s.;  stone- 
masons, 23s. ;  bricklayers,  22s.  6d. ;  painters,  22s. ;  slaters,  21s.; 
plasterers,  19s. ;  bricklayers'  and  plasterers'  labourers,  15s.  2d.  ; 
spademen,  15s.;  were  exactly  the  same  in  1 820  as  in  1810.  What 


PREFACE.  IX 

/ 

they  are  at  present  I  have  no  means  of  ascertaining.     Carpenters, 
whose  wages  in  1810  were  20s.,  received  30s.  in  1820. 

I  have,  in  a  great  degree,  confined  my  views  to  the  state  of  Penn- 
sylvania, but  by  no  means  wish  it  understood  that  this  state  ought 
to  attract  the  attention  of  emigrants  exclusively.  New  York  has 
great  advantages,  and,  of  course,  holds  out  corresponding  encou- 
ragement. The  difference,  however,  is  not  very  material  between 
the  two  states  ;  and  most  of  the  observations  made  with  respect  to 
the  one,  apply  with  little  variation  to  the  other.  The  greatness  of 
the  capital  of  New  York  must  rest  chiefly  on  the  basis  of  com- 
merce ;  while  Philadelphia,  although-  advantag  eously  situated  for 
commerce,  and  owning  vessels  in  the  foreign  tra  !e  to  the  amount 
of  62,610  tons,  and  in  the  coasting  trade,  to  the  amount  of  27,556 
tons,  is  more  devoted  to  manufactures  than  to  commerce,  and 
must  rest  her  hopes  of  a  high  degree  of  prosperity  mainly  on  the 
former. 

Dr.  Franklin  truly  stated  that  "  this  was  a  country  of  labour.'* 
And  it  has  undergone  no  alteration  since  the  days  of  that  illustri- 
ous philosopher.  Let  no  man,  therefore,  whether  farmer,  me- 
chanic, manufacturer,  or  labourer,  delude  himself  into  the  opinion 
that  by  immigration  into  the  United  States  he  can  dispense  with 
labour.  Nothing  can  be  more  erroneous. 

Let  it,  however,  be  observed,  as  a  source  of  consolation  to  those 
descriptions  of  persons  who  are  more  particularly  wanted  in  the 
United  States,  that  there  is  probably  no  country  where  the  same 
degree  of  comfort  and  enjoyment  can  be  procured  by  the  working 
classes,  with  the  same  degree  of  exertion.  For  two  days'  labour, 
at  twelve  hours  per  day,  a  journeyman  at  most  of  the  trades  car- 
ried on  in  Philadelphia  or  New  York,  can  procure  wholesome,  sub- 
stantial food  in  sufficient  abundance,  flesh  meat  of  good  quality 
included,  for  one  week.  Is  there  any  other  country  under  the 
canopy  of  heaven,  of  which  the  same  statement  can  be  made  to 
the  same  extent,  and  with  equal  truth  ?  However,  let  me  repeat 
in  the  most  forcible  language,  and  I  hope  it  will  have  its  due 
weight  in  those  quarters  for  which  it  is  intended,  that  no  man 
ought,  on  any  account  whatever,  to  cross  the  Atlantic  to  settle  iu 
the  United  States,  unless  he  be  seriously  disposed  to  industry  and 
economy,  and  determined  not  to  be  discouraged  by  those  diffi- 
culties, which,  even  under  favourable  auspices,  rarely  fail  to  attend 
a  change  of  country — nor  is  it  advisable  for  any  man  in  Europe, 
who  is  happily  or  comfortably  situated,  to  emigrate  to  this  or  any 
other  country.  Let  all  such  men  remember  the  old  admonitory 
epitaph,  too  often  and  most  destructively  neglected — "  1  was  well 
— I  would  be  better — Here  I  am." 


Philadelphia,  May  25,  1826. 


REFLECTIONS,  &e. 


When  a  man  is  deliberating  about  emigrating  from  his  native 
country,  and  abandoning  his  friends  and  relatives,  with  all  those 
objects  endeared  to  him  by  associations  from  his  infancy,  it  be- 
hoves him  well  to  consider  the  character,  habits,  and  manners  of 
the  people  among  whom  he  intends  to  domiciliate  himself — the  si- 
tuation of  the  country — the  'state  of  society — the  prospects  of 
success  in  the  peculiar  occupation  which  he  proposes  to  follow  ; 
to  weigh  well  the  various  disadvantages  to  which  emigrants  are 
more  or  less  liable  in  strange  countries,  against  those  under  which 
he  labours  at  home — as  well  as  the  advantages  he  hopes  to  enjoy, 
against  those  his  native  country  affords  ; — and  then,  according  to 
the  preponderance  on  either  side,  to  form  his  decision.  This  is 
the  course  which  prudence  dictates,  and,  when  pursued  with  the 
care,  attention,  and  scrutiny  which  the  importance  of  the  subject 
demands,  can  scarcely  fail  to  lead  to  satisfactory  results. 

To  enable  persons  in  Europe,  inclined  to  emigrate,  to  decide  this 
serious  question,  so  far  as  regards  this  country,  I  shall  present,  as 
briefly  as  possible,  such  views  of  those  points  most  necessary  to 
be  considered,  in  the  character  of  the  people,  and  in  the  situation 
of  the  United  States,  as  cannot  fail  to  aid  in  forming  a  'correct 
judgment.  These  views  are  the  result  of  a  residence  here,  of 
above  forty  years :  and,  having  arrived  at  mature  age  before  I 
emigrated  from  Ireland,  I  hope  I  may  assume  t9  be  in  some  degree 
qualified  to  make  a  comparison  between  the  two  portions  of  the 
globe. 

MANNERS    OF    THE    PEOPLE. 

Cobbett,  in  four  words,  drew  as  accurate  a  portrait  of  the  na- 
tional character  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  as  probably 
ever  was  drawn  of  any  nation,  on  one  point,  of  vital  importance 
to  emigrants.  He  said,  they  are — "  civil,  but  not  servile."  This, 
I  repeat,  is  strictly  accurate,  and  is  highly  honourable.  A  man 
may  travel  from  the  most  northern  boundary  of  the  country  to  the 
Gulf  of  Florida — and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Rocky  Mountains ; 
and,  provided  he  conduct  himself  decorously,  he  will  be  uniformly 
treated  with  civility.  There  are  few  countries  in  the  world,  of 
which  the  same  declaration  can  be  so  unqualifiedly  made.  But 
let  the  traveller  or  settler,  how  high  or  exalted  soever  he  be,  by 
descent,  standing,  official  station,  personal  or  intellectual  endow- 


11 

raents,  or  fortune,  as  he  values  his  peace  and  comfort,  beware  of 
indulging  in  impertinence,  petulance,  or  insolence.  Whenever  he 
places  himself  in  that  repulsive  attitude,  he  may  rest  assured  of 
being  humbled  and  mortified,  not  merely  by  those  who  are  his 
equals  in  point  of  fortune  or  talents,  but  even  by  the  lowest  mem- 
bers of  society,  who,  accustomed  to  civility  from  the  most  exalted 
of  their  own  countrymen,  will  not,  for  a  moment,  submit  to  inso- 
lence or  impertinence  from  strangers.  Those  Europeans,  therefore, 
who  have  been  accustomed  to  domineer  over,  and  even  occasionally 
to  strike,  servants  and  other  persons  in  humble  stations,  must 
wholly  change  their  manners  here,  or  else  they  will  pay  a  heavy 
forfeit.  I  am  persuaded  there  is  scarcely  a  single  servant,  black 
or  white,  of  the  lowest  order,  in  Philadelphia,  who  would  submit, 
without  return,  to  a  stroke  from  a  Croesus,  or  from  a  Lord  or  a 
Duke,  "  hung  round  with  stars  and  garters,"  nor  even  to  be  out- 
raged with  those  gross  and  scurrilous  epithets,  which  wealth  and 
pride  in  certain  parts  of  Europe  so  freely  lavish  on  persons  in 
subordinate  situations. 

To  the  mass  of  persons  disposed  to  emigrate  from  Europe,  who 
are  generally  in  the  middle  .and  humble  walks  of  life,  principally 
in  the  latter,  this  is  a  most  important  consideration.     They  will 
not  be  obliged  to  crouch  to  fellow  mortals,  nor  to  submit  to  inso- 
lence or  stripes  from  them,  because  those  lordlings   have  more 
worldly  wealth  or  higher  rank  than  they.     The  poorest  members 
of  society  may  stand  erect  and  unawed  in  the  presence  of  their 
fellow  man,  whatever  may  be  his  grade,  his  station,  or  his  wealth. 
This  estimable  feature  in  the   American  character  is  derived 
chiefly  from  the  freedom   of  the  governments,   which,  from  the 
earliest  period  to  the  present  time,  have  never  recognised  any  of 
those  arbitrary  distinctions  that  prevail  in  Europe,  dividing  the 
people  into  castes,  elevating  the  smaller  number  into  something 
like  "  superior  beings,"  and  in  the  same  degree  degrading  the 
majority.     The  benignant  operation  of  this  state  of  things  mny  be 
readily  conceived.     But  another  cause  has,  from  the  first  settle- 
ment of  America,  co-operated  to  produce  this  effect.     The  facility 
of  acquiring  landed  property  in  this  country,  has  been  uniformly 
so  great,  and  the  inducement  to  take  an  independent  grade  in  so- 
ciety, is  so  powerful  an  incentive  to  the  purchase  of  that  species 
of  property,  that  labourers  and  hired  people  of  all  descriptions, 
(  who  have  universally  had  such  liberal  wages,  that,  by  economy, 
they  might,  in  a  few  years,  save  enough  to  buy  farms,)  have  been, 
at  all  times,  with  hardly  an  exception,  scarce   and  in   demand. — 
Employers,  therefore,  have  held  their  hired  people  by  a  very  pre- 
carious tenure.     The  latter  knew  their  own  value,  and  would  not 
submit  to   harsh   treatment.     The   former,  aware  of  the  conse- 
quence of  oppression  or  ill  usage,  found  the   necessity  of  cour- 
teous behaviour.     The  steady  operation  of  both  the  causes  above 
recited,  has  produced  that  delightful  state  of  society,  as  regards 
'    the  wealthy  and  those  in  humble  life,  in  which  the  one  would  not 
.  dare  to  oppress,  and  the  other  would  not  submit  to  oppression. 
The  endearing  relation  between  parents  and  children  partakes 


12 

largely  of  the  same  mild  character.  The  austerity,  the  harshness, 
and  the  severity  which  characterize  this  relation  in  some  parts  of 
kurope,  are  here  unknown,  except  among  some  foreigners,  who 
have  brought  liither  the  manners  of  their  own  countries.  Children 
are  scarcely  ever  banished  into  nurseries,  or  entrusted  wholly  to 
the  care  of  hired  servants,  as  is  too  frequently  the  case  there. 
From  an  early  period  they  are  made  companions  by  their  parents, 
which  affords  an  opportunity  of  expanding  their  ideas  long  before 
they  would  reach  maturity,  in  the  seclusion  to  which  children  in 
Europe  are  often  subjected.  They  are  likewise  much  earlier  in- 
troduced into  company  than  in  that  quarter.  This  inspires  a  con- 
fidence in  themselves,  extremely  advantageous  in  their  progress 
through  life.  In  many  cases,  however,  indulgence  is  here  carried 
to  a  censurable  extreme,  and  parental  authority  not  sufficiently 
exercised.  But,  in  general,  the  happy  medium  is  preserved  be- 
tween over  indulgence  and  degrading  severity.  1  have  known 
some  foreigners  who  used  a  whip  or  other  instrument  of  correc- 
tion to  their  children  at  18,  19,  20,  and  even  beyond  the  period 
when  minority  had  expired.  No  such  case  is  to  be  found  among 
natives  of  this  country.  A  man  who  struck  his  child  at  that  age, 
would  be  regarded  with  disgust. 

The  pernicious  and  unnatural  system  of  primogeniture,  whereby 
the  rights,  the  happiness,  and  the  fortunes  of  the  junior  branches 
of  a  family  are  sacrificed  for  the  aggrandizement  of  the  oldest 
son,  is  abhorred  in  this  country,  and  unknown  to  its  laws  and  con- 
stitutions. 

The  marriage  connexion,  on  the  proper  regulation  of  which  so 
large  a  portion  of  public  virtue  and  happiness  depends,  takes  place 
here  rationally,  and  very  differently  from  the  custom  in  some  parts 
of  Europe.  Control  or  coercion  is  altogether  unknown.  The 
parties  are,  in  almost  every  case,  as,  with  some  slight  limitation, 
they  ought  to  be  in  all,: — perfectly  free  agents.  Matches  are 
scarcely  ever  definitely  made  by  parents.  Stipulations  for  fortune 
on  the  part  of  the  male  are  extremely  rare  ;  and,  therefore, 
daughters  are  incomparably  easier  settled  here  than  in  other 
countries,  in  many  of  which  the  sex,  without  fortune  or  great 
personal  beauty,  undergoes  a  withering  neglect.  This  considera^ 
tion,  to  parents  influenced  by  proper  regard  for  the  welfare  and 
happiness  of  their  children,  is  all-important.  A  parent  who  has  a 
fortune  to  bestow  with  his  daughter,  frequently  settles  it  on  her 
and  her  issue,  thus  guarding  her  and  them  against  the  contin- 
•gencies  to  which  human  affairs  are  so  liable. 

When  men  enter  into  society,  besides  various  minor  advantages 
proposed,  there  are  three  great  objects  in  view — security  of  person 
— security  of  property — and  the  glorious  privilege  of  worshipping 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  consciences.  Now  it  is 
easy  to  prove  that  there  is  no  country  superior  to  the  United 
States  in  these  respects. 

SECURITY   OF    PERSON'. 

With  respect  to  this  species  of  security,  a  very  brief  view  will  be 
sufficient  for  our  purpose.  ^ 


IS 

Trial  by  jury  is  secured  to  every  person  accused  of  crime. 
Unreasonable  bail  is  expressly  forbidden  by  our  constitutions. — 
The  habeas  corpus,  that  sacred  bulwark  of  liberty,  is  in  full  force; 
and,  amidst  all  the  difficulties  and  dangers  that  the  country  has  had 
to  struggle  with,  in  a  period  of  infancy  and  comparative  feeble- 
ness, was  never  suspended.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  extraordinary 
emergency  and  danger  of  New  Orleans,  when  it  was  believed  that 
some  timid  or  disaffected  citizens  contemplated  a  surrender  of  the 
place  to  the  British,  General  .Jackson  proclaimed  martial  law,  to 
save  that  all-important  city,  which,  but  for  that  bold  measure, 
would  very  probably  have  been  captured. 

TAXATION    AND    SUPPORT    OF    GOVERNMENT. 

The  taxes  in  the  United  States  are  comparatively  insignificant. 
There  is  no  excise,  nor  direct  tax  imposed  by  the  general  govern- 
ment, the  support  of  which  is  derived  wholly  from  impost  on  im- 
ported goods,  tonnage  duties,  a»d  the  sale  of  public  lands.  The 
support  of  the  government  of  Pennsylvania  is  derived  from  auction 
duties,  arrears  of  the  payment  of  public  lands,  tavern  licenses, 
and  licenses  for  the  sale  of  foreign  merchandise.*  The  county 
taxes  are  generally  very  moderate,  and  the  funds  obtained  from 
them  are  employed  for  the  payment  of  the  expenses  attendant  on 
the  administration -of  justice,  the  preservation  and  improvement  of 
public  roads,  and  the  education  of  the  poor.  The  expenditure 
and  application  of  the  money  raised  by  those  taxes  are  committed 
to  persons  annually  elected  by  those  who  pay  them. 

The  poor  tax,  so  excessively  burdensome  in  England,  is  insig- 
nificant in  the  United  States,  and  probably  does  not  exceed, 
throughout  the  state  of  Pennsylvania,  cities  and  towns  excepted, 
one  shilling  sterling  per  head.  In  the  cities  it  is  higher.  In  Phi- 
ladelphia, with  a  population  of  130,000  souls,  the  poor  tax  of  1823 
was  only  114,468  dollars,  and  this  is  greatly  beyond  the  proper 
proportion  of  the  city,  as  the  chief  part  of  the  paupers  of  the 
state  centre  in  the  metropolis.  The  whole  of  the  taxes  of  this 
population  last  year,  for  all  the  purposes  of  pitching,  paving, 
lighting,  watching,  &c.  was  only  261,607  dollars,  or  £58,134>. 

It  cannot  fail  to  be  satisfactory  to  state  the  expenses  for  the 
support  of  the  government  of  Pennsylvania,  in  1824,  with  a  po- 
pulation of  about  1 ,300,000  souls, — one-eleventh  of  the  population 
of  Great  Britain,  (14,379,677.) 

Senate   Dollars  23,509 

House  of  Representatives  59,962 

Executive  Department   10,261 

Judiciary  - 62,648 

Treasury    4,679 

Accountant   3,406 

Land  Office  5,199 

Surveyor-General's  Office   4.294. 

Contingent  Expenses  5,405 

Dollars  179,363 
Equal  to  about  14  cents,  or7i<3.  sterling,  per  head. 

»  This  observation  does  not  extend  to  the  owners  of  large  bodies  of  uncultivated  lands, 
upon  whom  the  payment  of  road  and  county  taxes  for  unproductive  property  falU  very 
h«arlly. 

C 


A  view  of  the  expenditure  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  for  one  year,  showing  how  cheaply  a  great  nation  may  be 
governed,  cannot  be  uninteresting  to  those  who  contemplate  a 

removal  to,  or  feel  an  interest  in,  this  country. 

* 

Expenses  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Year  1824  : 


Congress 

Executive  Departn)ent,indudingtheMint, 
Surveying  Department,  Public  Build- 
ings, &c 

Judiciary 

Government  of  the  Territories  of  the 
United  States 

Miscellaneous 

Diplomatic  Department 

Military  Department,  including  Fortifi- 
cations, Arming  the  Militia,  &c 

Naval  Department  

Interest  of  Public  Debt 

Redemption  of  Do 

Revolutionary  Pensions  

Claims  of  our  citizens  on  Spain,  paid  by 
Government  in  Exchange  for  Florida, 
worth  40,000,000  dollars 


Dollars. 
603,758 


496,452 
£06,442 

26,632 
818,775 
108,898 

4,002,654 
2,904.581 
5,301,104 
11,267,289 
1,267,600 


.€. 
134,164 


110,32? 
46,548 

5,918 
181,950 
24,199 

889,478 

645.462 

1,178,023 

2,503.842. 

281,688 


4,891,368        =         1,086,970 


Total 31,898,533 


7,088,562 


SUMMARY. 


Legislative,   Executive,  Judiciary,  Mi-      Dollars.  «. 

litary,  and  Xaval  Establishments,  &c.  9,171,152  =  2,038,038 

Redemption  and  Interest  of  Public  Debt  16,568,393  =  3,681,865 
Revolutionary  Pensions  and  Spanish 

Claims    6,158,968  =        1,368,659 

Total 31,898,538  7,088,562 

It  thus  appears,  that  deducting  the  revolutionary  pensions,  the 
purchase  of  Florida,  the  interest  of  the  public  debt,  and  the  pay- 
ment of  part  of  it,  the  government  of  the  United  States  is  carried 
on  at  an  expense  of  75  cents,  or  about  3s.  4^d.  sterling  per  head, 
being  little  more  than  one-third  of  the  araonnt  of  the  poor  rates 
in  England. 

RELIGION. 

There  is,  I  believe,  no  part  of  Europe  in  which  religious  liberty  is 
to  be  found  as  it  prevails  here.  In  this  point  the  United  States  stand 
proudly  pre-eminent  over  most  of  the  nations  of  the  eastern  hemi- 
sphere, from  the  period  when  Christianity  was  there  taken  under 
the  protection  of  Government  to  the  present  time.  Almost  every- 
where in  Europe  there  is  a  national  religion,  which  is  supported 
by  the  Government,  and  domineers  over  all  others — from  the  fol- 
lowers of  which  it  levies  contributions  for  the  support  of  its  clergy. 
In  some  countries,  the  professors  of  religions  different  from  the 
established  one,  are  excluded  from  important  offices,  however  great 
their  talents  or  merits. 


15 

Our  citizens  are  free  as  air  to  worship  God  in  whatever  form  or 
riiode  they  please.  Religion  interposes  no  bar  or  disqualification 
as  regards  civil  rights.  The  Jew,  the  Roman  Catholic,  the  most 
rigid  Calvinist,  the  Protestant  Episcopalian,  the  Paedo  Baptist,  the 
Anti-peedo  Baptist,  the  Socinian,  the  Swedenborgian,  all,  all  stand 
on  the  same  ground,  in  the  public  eye;* — and  the  charities  and  en- 
joyments of  social  life  are  never  interrupted  by  differences  of  re- 
ligion, how  great  soever  they  may  be. 

That  this  state  of  religious  liberty  has  a  benign  effect,  cannot  be 
doubted,  as  there  is  no  country  in  Europe  which  contains  more 
truly  religious  persons  than  the  United  States,  in  proportion  to 
the  population. 

So  far  as  regards  religion,  there  is  no  such  word  in  the  American 
language  as  "  toleration."  This  disgraceful  word,  in  the  English, 
French,  and  other  buropean  languages,  means,  that  a  miserable 
worm,  who  worships  God  in  one  particular  form,  permits  hi» 
fellow  worm  to  do  the  same — and  does  not  subject  him  to  tines 
and  forfeitures — impale  him  on  a  stake — suspend  him  on  a  gibbet 
— or  light  faggots  to  burn  him  to  death,  as  the  forefathers  of  almost 
all  Christian  denominations,  Catholics,  Protestants,  and  Presby- 
terians, did  in  days  past ! 

Connected  with  this  subject,  is  the  support  of  the  clergy :  and 
here  how  transcendant  American  superiority  !  Our  happy  citizens 
are  not  obliged  to  devote  to  a  pampered  establishment  a  tenth  part 
of  the  produce  of  the  soil,  besides  supporting  the  clergy  of  their 
own  particular  denomination.  The  man,  therefore,  who  raises  five 
thousand  bushels  of  wheat,  is  not  compelled,  as  in  Great  Britain 
ami  Ireland,  to  give  five  hundred  to  a  clergyman  over  whose  ap- 
pointment he  has  had  no  control,  and  whose  religion  he  perhaps 
abhors. 

In  nearly  all  the  states  the  support  of  the  cli  rgy  is  wholly  vo- 
luntary. In  cities  and  towns,  and  sometimes  in  villages,  the  rents 
of  pews  generally  afford  a  sufficient  income  for  the  purpose.  In 
Massachusets,  New  Hampshire,  and  Connecticut,  the  citizens  are 
subjected  to  a  small  annual  tax  for  the  maintenance  of  Christian 
worship — but  they  have  the  right  to  select  the  clergymen  to 
whom  it  shall  bo  paid.  There  is  not  the  shadow,  from  Maine  to 
Florida,  of  a  religious  establishment  connected  with  the  Govern- 
ment. 

POLITICAL    PRIVILEGES. 

This  is  an  important  feature  in  the  character  of  the  country. 
In  the  states  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  every  citizen  paying 
tax  of  any  kind,  is  entitled  to  the  right  of  suffrage  as  fully  and  as 
completely  as  the  owner  of  a  million  of  acres — or  the  possessor  of 
the  wealth  of  Croesus — and  all  offices  of  honour  and  emolument, 
"  except  the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  (which  is  the  only 

»  In  one  or  two  of  the  states  the  exclusion  of  Roman  Catholics  from  public  offices, 
enacted  in  times  of  intolerance  and  hipotry,  remains  in  the  constitutions.  But  there  U 
no  doubt,  that  whenever  those  constitutions  are  Milmiitted  to  conventions  for  rerision. 
this  foul  stain  will  be  obliterated. 


IS 

one  that  requires  that  the  occupant  be  a  native  citizen,  or  have- 
been  a  citizen  at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  existing  form  of 
government,  1787,)  are  as  fully  open  to  a  naturalized  as  to  a  na- 
tive citizen.  Many  highly  important  offices  in  different  states,  and 
under  the  general  government,  are  filled  by  the  former.  The  fol- 
lowing are  the  terms  on  which  citizenship  may  be  acquired  by 
foreigners  :  five  years  uninterrupted  residence  in  the  United  States, 
and  one  year  in  the  state  where  it  is  applied  for — a  declaration 
on  oath  or  affirmation,  three  years  before  the  application,  of  a  bona 
Jide  intention  to  become  a  citizen,  and  of  a  determination  to  sup- 
port the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  with  a  renunciation  of 
allegiance  to  all  foreign  powers. 

The  number  of  votes  presented  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  for 
members  of  the  legislature  is  about  8,000.  The  whole  number 
of  votes  given  for  governor  of  the  state  at  the  last  election  in 
1823,  was  154>,  147,  or  more  than  one-ninth  of  the  whole  popu- 
lation. 

CRIMINAL    CODE. 

Human  life  has  its  proper  value  in  the  United  States — not  so  in 
Europe.  In  Pennsylvania  there  is  but  one  capital  crime — murder 
in  the  first  degree.  The  severity  of  the  criminal  code  has  been 
gradually  mitigating  from  year  to  year  in  most  of  the  states.  In 
some  the  mitigation  has  been  slow  ;  in  others,  rapid  and  important. 
But  the  progress  of  public  opinion  affords  a  sure  pledge  that  at  no 
distant  day  the  criminal  corle  of  all  the  states  will  be  purified  from 
the  wanton  waste' of  humaii  life  engrafted  on  our  systems  by  an 
imitation  of  the  codes  of  Europe. 


,  FIRE-ARMS    AND    GAME-LAWS. 

While  in  parts  of  Europe  the  qualifications  for  the  free  use  of 
fire-arms  are  so  rigorous,  and  the  expense  of  a  license  to  keep  them 
so  <;reat,  that  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  population  are  wholly  de- 
barred from  the  possession  of  those  weapons,  lest  they  should  use 
them  to  rescue  themselves  from  oppression;  every  man  in  this 
country,  in  however  low  or  humble  a  rank  in  society,  may  pur- 
chase and  keep  as  many  as  he  may  judge  proper  and  can  pay  for. 
And  so  far  as  regards  game,  the  possessor  of  millions  has  no  pri- 
vilege beyond  that  which  is  enjoyed  by  one  of  our  humblest  citi- 
zens. 

Having  pointed  out  a  few  of  the  prominent  features  in  the  moral 
and  political  character  of  the  United  States,  I  proceed  to  consider 
the  descriptions  of  persons  to  whom  it  holds  out  advantages  and 
inducements  to  emigrate  from  their  native  countries,  and  also 
those  to  whom  emigration  for  the  purpose  of  settlement  here, 
would  be  disadvantageous. 

AGRICULTURISTS. 
The  greatest  evil  in  the  United  States  is  the  excess  of  the  agri- 


17 

cultural  population,*  which  is  at  least  30  per  cent,  more  than  is 
necessary  to  furnish  the  foreign  and  domestic  markets,  limited  as 
the  former  are  by  the  wise  policy  of  the  buropean  nations,  which 
protect  their  own  agriculturists,  and  never  admit  our  bread  stuffs, 
but  when  in  danger  of  famine,  or  of  such  a  scarcity  as  will  so  far 
enhance  the  price  of  those  necessaries  of  life,  as  to  oppress  and 
distress  the  poorer  classes  of  society. 

The  mischievous  effects  of  this  unwise  distribution  of  our  popu- 
lation were  not  felt  during  the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution, 
nor  for  a  year  or  two  afterwards,  while  the  European  markets 
were  open  to  our  bread  stuffs,  which  commanded  extravagant 
prices.  But  since  those  markets  were  closed  in  the  fall  of  1817,f 
the  operation  of  this  undue  proportion  of  agriculturists  has  been 
highly  pernicious.  The  export  of  flour  in  1817:  was  1,488,198 
barrels,  amounting  to  17,751,375  dollars.  Whereas  in  1822, 
1823,  and  1824-,  the  export  was  only  2  581,359  barrels  amounting 
to  15, 724,829  dollars  ;  or  an  average  of  860,4-53  barrels,  and 
5,241,609  dollars.  The  export,  of  1825,  was  813,906  barrels, 
amounting  to  only  4-, 212,127  dollars. 

From  this  view,  it  is  evident  that  the  policy  of  our  Govern- 
ment has  a  withering  influence  on  the  agriculture  of  the  United 
States.  All  the  markets  of  the  world,  wherein  the  produce  of 
our  soil  is  received,  are  almost  constantly  glutted  with  our  great 
staples,,  bread  stuffs,  cotton,  and  tobacco,  the  prices  of  which  are 
therefore  greatly  depressed,  to  the  injury  of  our  farmers,  and 


«  The  population  of  the  United  States  in  the  year  1820,  when  the  last  census  was  taken, 
was  arranged  as  follows  : —  Heads  ofFamiliet.     Per  Cent. 

Engaged  in  agriculture 2,079,363  83 

in  manufactures  and  the  mechanic  arts, 349,643  14 

in  commerce,  including  shopkeepers  "I 


generally   J 


72,558 


2,501,564  100 

The  whole  of  the  population  at  that  period  was  9,614,415,  and  was  thus  distributed  :— 

Engaged  in  agriculture 8,022,319  83 

in  manufactures  and  the  mechanic  arts '• 1,351,622  14 

in  commerce  and  shopkeeping 280,474  3 


9,654,415  100 


The  total  number  of  familiei  in  Great  Britain  in  1821,  was 2,931,083 

Of  which  were  engaged  in  agriculture 978,656 

in  manufactures  •••-.. 924,432 

in  trade  and  commerce 15,507 

all  other  descriptions  612,488 

S.931.083 


Thus,  while  in  Great  Britain  one-third  part  of  the  population  suffices  for  agriculture,  and 
feeds  the  whole,  there  are,  in  this  country,  83  per  cent,  engaged  in  that  pursuit,  the  whole 
amount  of  whose  exports  in  the  year  1824,  was  only  43,884,844  dollars,  produced  by  about 
10,000,000  people;  and,  excluding  tobacco,  cotton,  and  rice,  (produced  by  about  1,500,000 
persons,)  the  whole  of  the  exports  of  the  remaining  8,500,000  agriculturists,  was  only 
15,198,895  dollars!  Whereas  the  export  from  Great  Britain  in  1S25,  of  the  mere  article 
of  cotton  yarn,  produced  probably  by  150,000  persons,  was  £3,135, 406,  equal  to  14,199,732 
dollars !  What  stupendous  facts  ! 

t  The  British  ports  were  opened  for  the  reception  of  our  flour  In  November,  1818,  and 
c.int.lniircl  open  until  February,  1819. 


18 

the  too  frequent  ruin  of  our  merchants.*  Against  this  destructive 
policy,  Alexander  Hamilton,-}-  one  of  the  greatest  practical  politi- 
cal economists  that  ever  lived,  Dr.  Franklin,  j  and  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, $  two  of  our  greatest  statesmen,  have  borne  the  most  decided 
testimony,  but  in  vain.  Every  attempt  to  introduce  a  sounder 
policy  is  resisted  with  as  much  zeal  and  ardour  as  if  the  change 
were  fraught  with  destruction — and,  strange  to  tell,  by  those  who 
are  the  greatest  sufferers  by  the  present  system  ! 

It  may  seem   extraordinary  that  I  believe,  nevertheless,   that 
certain  descriptions  of  farmers  might   advantageously  immigrate 


*  The  consequence  of  this  pernicious  state  of  things,  is,  that  in  three  cases  out  of  four, 
the  greater  the  quantity  of  our  leading  staples  we  export,  the  less  in  proportion  they 
produce.  This  general  result  of  glutted  markets,  occasionally,  it  is  true,  controlled  and 
counteracted  by  circumstances,  was  two  hundred  years  since  discerned,  and  as  far  as 
practicable,  guarded  against  by  the  sagacious  policy  of  the  Dutch,  in  the  case  of  spices. 
They  limited  the  cultivation  within  bounds  calculated  to  guard  against  a  ruinous  dimi- 
nution of  price ;  and,  when  the  crops  were  too  abundant,  went  the  extraordinary  length 
of  destroying  the  surplus  quantity.  Whereas  the  unvarying  tendency  of  our  policy  has 
been,  by  converting  the  domestic  customers  of  our  farmers  into  rivals,  to  increase  pro- 
duction, even  while  our  foreign  markets,  as  in  the  case  of  grain,  were  diminishing.  A 
view  of  the  quantity  and  amount  of  cotton  aud  flour  exported  in  different  years,  will  shed 
strong  light  on  this  doctrine. 


COTTON. 
Ib. 

1819  Exported     87,997,045 

1820  127,860,152 

1821  121,893,405 

1822  144,675,09^ 

1823  173,723,270 

1824  142,389,683 

FLOUR. 


Dollars. 
21,081,069 
22,308,607 
20.157,484 
24,035,058 
20,445,520 
21,947,401 


Barrels.  Dollars. 

1819        Exported        750,660      Proceeds        6,005,280 
18«0  1,117,036  5,296,664 

1821  1,056,119  4,298,043 

1882  827,865  5,103.280 

1823  756.702  4,962.373 

1824  996,792  5,759,176 

1825  813,906  4,212,127 

The  early  ssttlers  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  finding  the  foreign  markets  ruinously  glut- 
ted with  their  great  staple,  tobacco,  adopted  the  Dutch  policy,  and  passed  aets  suspending: 
the  culture  for  a  limited  time.  • 

"  No  remedy  had  been  found  for  the  low  price  of  the  staple  (of  Virginia)  which  had 
been  so  long  and  so  feelingly  deplored." — "  To  enhance,  if  possible,  the  price  of  a  commo- 
dity, on  which  the  existence  of  the  colony  depended,  the  Astembly  prohibited  the  growth  of 
tobacco  for  a  limited  time."  "  The  same  inconvenience  being  at  length  probably  felt  in 
Maryland,  a  law  was  passed  in  1666,  to  enforce  a  similar  project." — Chalmers's  Annals,  p.  314. 

f  "  If  Europe  will  not  take  from  us  the  products  of  our  soil,  upon  terms  consistent  with 
o«r  interest,  the  natural  remedy  is  to  contract,  as  fast  as  possible,  our  wants  of  her." — Alexan- 
der Hamilton's  Report  on  Manufactures,  p.  40. 

$  <•  Foreign  luxuries,  and  needless  manufactures,  imported  and  used  in  a  nation,  inereaie 
the  people  of  the  nation  that  furnishes  them,  and  diminish  the  people  of  the  nation  that  «*?»  than.' 
— franklin's  Works,  vol.  4,  p.  189. 

§  "  Where  a  nation  imposes  high  duties  on  our  productions,  or  prohibits  them  altogether,  it 
may  be  proper  for  us  to  do  the  same  with  theirs— first  burdening  or  excluding  those  productions 
which  they  bring  hern  in  competition  tuith  our  own  of  the  lame  kind:  selecting  next  such  manu- 
factures as  we  take  from  them  in  greatest  quantity,  and  which  at  the  same  time  we  could  thesoone.it 
furnish  to  ourselves,  or  obtain  from  other  countries;  imposing  on  them  duties  light  at  first, 
hut  heavier  and  heavier  afterwards,  as  other  channels  of  supply  open."— Jefferson's  Report 
on  the  Privileges  and  Restrictions  of  the  Commerce  of  the  United  State*  in  Foreign  rountrftt.  • 


19 

into  the  United  States.  It  is,  however,  the  fact,  as  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  make  appear. 

A  few  skilful  farmers,  without  any  capital,  but  possessed  of  good 
characters,  and  bringing  with  them  such  recommendations  as 
would  insure  confidence,  might  derive  great  advantage  from  immi- 
gration into  the  United  States.  Such  men  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  can  scarcely  hope  to  emerge  beyond  the  situation  of 
day  labourers,  at  the  rate  of  8s.  6d.9s.  or  10s.*  per  week,  and  have 
no  prospect  for  sickness,  or  old  age,  but  the  poor-house  :f  whereas 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  our  cities,  persons  of  this  description 
can  readily  procure  contracts  for  the  cultivation  of  farms  from  4-0 
to  80  or  100  acres  on  the  shares,  on  the  following  plan.  The 
owner  of  the  land  furnishes  half  the  seed,  the  implements,  and 
oxen;  the  farmer  half  the  seed  and  labour.  The  proceeds  are 
equally  divided  between  them;  and  though  the  farmer's  share  is 
moderate,  still  the  situation  of  tile  emigrant  would  be  greatly 
improved,  and  by  steady  industry  and  economy  he  might  make 
handsome  savings,  and  finally  become  an  independent  landholder. 

Another  class  of  farmers  would  find  immigration  into  the  United 
States  highly  advantageous.  I  mean  those  possessed  of  small  capi- 
tals, say  from  300  to  750  pounds  sterling.  What  with  rent,  ex- 
cise, tithes,  and  taxes,  (poor  rates  are  added  in  England,)  such 
men  can  barely  subsist  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  .Let  me 
state  iheir  prospects  in  the  United  States. 

Good  farms  with  valuable  improvements,  a  dwelling-house, 
barn,  and  spring  house  on  each,  may  be  purchased  at  20  or  30 
miles  from  Philadelphia,  for  30  or  40  dollars  per  acre.  J 

At  a  greater  distance  from  Philadelphia,  say  4>0  or  50  miles* 
lands,  with  extensive  improvements,  may  be  purchased  for  20  dol- 
lars per  acre.  In  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York* 


*  It  appears  by  a  recent  publication,  "  A  History  and  Review  of  the  late  Session  of  the 
British  Parliament,"  that  the  wages  of  country  labourers  in  Dorsetshire  are  only  7s.  per 
week,  equal  to  one  dollar  and  fifty-six  cants. 

t  From  a  late  Morning  Herald  the  following  statement  is  taken  of  the  wages  and  ex- 
penditure of  an  English  labouring  agriculturist: 

Earnings  of  a  labourer  in  agriculture,  at  9s  per  week,  per  annum  •• £23    8    0 


Clothes  for  self  and  family-  •  •  • 

Fuel  

Candles,  soap,  salt,  &c 

Br«ad  for  a  family  of  six  penwiis.  at  6*.  per  week,  per  annum 


£28  12 


Th«  balance  is  made  up  by  the  contributions  of  the  overseers  of,  the  poor. 

t  From  the  books  of  a  Philadelphia  agent  for  the  sale  of  real  estate,  the  following  ex- 
tracts are  taken -.-^1 44  acres,  in  Bucks'  County,  32  miles  from  Philadelphia,  with  a  large 
dwelling-house,  stables,  waggon  house,  &c.  at  32  dollars  per  acre — 100  acres,  33  miles 
from  Philadelphia,  with  a  stone  d* •elling-house,  stone  kitchen,  barn,  &c.  for  4000  dollars.  '. 
—108  acres,  30  miles  from  Philadelphia,  with  a  stone  dwelling-house,  barn.  &c.  &c. 
4000  dollars. 

These,  it  Is  to  be  observed,  are  the  prices  Hslted — from  which  probably  a  considefable 
abatement  would  be  made. 


ao 

uncleared  lands,  contiguous  to  navigable  streams,  may  be  pur- 
chased for  two,  three,  and  four  dollars.  The  expense  of  clearing 
is  about  ten  or  eleven  dollars  per  acre — and  I  am  assured,  on  re- 
spectable authority,  that  the  first  crop  ot  wheat  after  clearing, 
will  generally  pay  that  expense.  These  lands  hold  out  powerful 
encouragement  to  industrious  and  enterprising  emigrants.  The 
great  progress  of  the  woollen  manufacture  renders  the  raising  of 
sheep  a  lucrative  business  for  farmers.  The  internal  improve- 
ments in  canals  and  roads,  effected  and  contemplated  in  both 
those  states,  will  secure  extraordinary  advantages  to  sellers  con- 
tiguous to  these  means  of  communication.  To  farmers  with  large 
and  industrious  families,  these  sections  of  the  country  hold  out 
every  temptation — as  they  may  carry  on  cultivation  extensively 
with  little  hired  labour.* 

New  lands,  belonging  to  the  United  States,  may  be  had  in  the 
western  states  anil  territories  ibr  125  cents,  or  5s.  7£d.  sterling 
per  acre,  in  perpetuity.  Thus,  for  a  fourth  part  of  the  mere  tithe 
per  acre,  paid  in  many  parts  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  lands 
may  be  purchased  in  fee-simple.  This  appears  to  offer  strong 
temptation  ;  as  complete  independence  may  be  secured  at  so  very 
easy  a  rate.  But  I  am  much  inclined  to  believe  that  few  English, 
Irish,  Scotch,  or  German  farmers  are  well  calculated  to  struggle 
with  the  difficulties  in  those  remote  quarters,  where  the  popula- 
tion is  so  thinly  scattered,  and  where  the  settlers  are  in  some  de- 
gree debarred  from  markets  for  their  produce. 

The  following  are  the  prices  of  stock  in  and  near  Philadelphia. 
Good  working  horses  from  50  to  90  dollars.  Cows  from  15  to2  0 
dollars.  Fresh  cows,  with  their  calves,  from  25  to  30  dollars. 
Oxen  in  a  lean  state,  sell  for  three  and  a  half  to  four  dollars  per 
cwt.  —  fattened,  four  and  a  half  to  five  dollars. 

In  order  to  enable  farmers  to  form  an  idea  of  what  they  have 
a  right  to  expect  by  settling  in  this  country,  I  will  state  the  prices, 
in  the  Philadelphia  markets,  of  various  articles,  some  of  which 
they  will  have  to  sel',  and  others  to  purchase,  as  extracted  from 
the  latest  prices  current.f 


to  i 
depr 

in  the  luiuuic  auu  taatui  11  ami-co,  mi.iini  1'iuuia.vi/    vtii.;i 

unless  under  particular  advantages  of  soil  and  location. 

•f  To  facilitate  the  conversion  of  those  prices  into  sterling  money,  I  annex  an  exchange 
table. 


Id  sterling  is  equal  at  par  teabout 

Cents. 
1.85 
3  70 

12d 

Cents, 
sterling  is  equal  at  par  to  about  20.35 
.  .  .,  '......  02  22 

5.55 

13d 

24  5 

740 

t    25. 

.     925 

14d 

25.92 

•   11  11 

'  27.76 

1°  96 

>>7d 

,  50. 

14  80 

f    75.     , 

T^ 

g 

16  Ro 

Md 

100. 

s  ••}• 

10d  ... 

.    18.50 

4 


21 


11  00    a     11  50 
10  00    a     11  00 
2  25    a      2  50 
3  75     a      4  25- 
9     a           10    - 
8    a          10  - 
15     a           164 
8    a          11 
1O    a           124 
12    a          164 
11    a          17 
40    a      1  on 
30    a          35- 
284  ff          29 
35    a          37 
50    a          60- 
8    a          11 
84  a           10 
8    a           10 
45    a          60 
30    a          32 

f/L* 

'$ 

Mess  Beef,  ditto  

Coffee,         ditto        ditto     

Brown  shirting  |  wide,  per  yard  

Ditto        ditto  |  do.        do  •..  

Satinets,  i  

Muscovado  Sugar,  2d  and  3rd  quality  i  

Country  Tallow  per  Ib  .'.  .'.  

Wool,  Merino,  clean  '.  

ENGINEERS. 

For  a  few  perfectly  competent  engineers,  this  country  affords 
very  great  encouragement.     There  is  hardly  a  state  in  the  Union 
in  which    canals  and  rail-roads  are  not  either    commenced  or 
contemplated. 

..' 


MINERS    AND    MINERALOGISTS. 

For  scientific  persons  of  these  descriptions,  there  is  great  scope 
in  the  United  States.  There  is  probably  no  country  richer  in 
every  species  of  mines  and  minerals ;  and  a  very  small  propor- 
tion of  these  boundless  treasures  has  been  explored. 

LABOURERS. 

There  is  scarcely  any  limit  to  the  number  of  labourers,  who 
are  now,  and  probably  will  be  for  twenty  years  to  come,  wanted  in 
this  country.  The  spirit  of  internal  improvement,  in  canals, 
rail-roads,  and  turnpikes,  is  wide  awake  in  every  part  of  the 
Union ;  and  creates  a  great  demand  for  that  class,  of  which  the 
number  of  native  citizens  bears  no  proportion  to  the  demand. 
The  Irish  labourers  are  found  uncommonly  hardy  and  active,  and 
for  years  have  done  a  large  portion  of  the  work  on  canals  and 
turnpikes.  Their  wages  are  about  seventy-five  cents  per  day,  or 
four  dollars  and  a  half  per  week.  Their  board,  which  includes 
meat  every  day,  and  often  twice  a  day,  costs  about  two  dollars, 
leaving  a  balance  of  about  two  dollars  and  a  half,  or  11s.  3d. 
sterling,  which  is  far  more  than  the  whole  of  their  earnings  in 
their  own  country. 

A  statement  of  the  price  of  provisions  will  show  the  comfort 
which  this  class  of  our  citizens  may  enjoy.  In  the  Philadelphia 
market  at  this  time,  beef  costs  ten  cents  per  pound — mutton  five 
cents — veal  six  to  eight  cents — a  pair  of  large  fowls  thirty-seven 
to  fifty  rents — a  turkey  from  fifty  to  seventy-five  cents — bread, 
per  Ib.  3  cents. 

The  wages  of  country  labourers  are  high — from  7/5  to  TOO  dol- 
lars per  annum,  exclusive  of  comfortable  board  and  lodging. 


CLERKS    AND    SHOPKEEPERS.  3d  0 

To  these  classes  the  United  States  hold  out  no  temp£*9«n. 
There  is  at  all  times  a  superabundance  of  them,  far  mo*dJ'. 
can  find  employment. 

il> 
THE    LEARNED    PROFESSIONS. 

The  ridiculous  pride  of  too  many  of  our  citizens,  whiclv«r$vo't- 
at  the  idea  of  apprenticing  their  sons  to  trades,  crowds  th&l<gal 
and  medical  professions  with  numbers  far  beyond  the  demsftd 
the  country.     It  therefore  results  that  there  is  no  temptation  for 
lawyers  or  doctors  to  migrate  to   the  United  States      The  :-i 
observation  will  apply  to  the  clerical  profession,  except  as  re^f  ' 
the  Roman  Catholics  and  Presbyterians,  who  are,  in  many  of 
states,  slenderly  provided  with  pastors. 

-  bol 

TEACHERS. 

Foj:  persons  of  this  class,  of  the  highest  order,  duly  q 
there  is  a  demand  —  but  it  is  a  demand  easily  satisfied,  ^S  the 
market  is  soon  overstocked. 

GENTLEMEN    OF    FORTUNE.  fiuj  ; 

To  mere  men  of  pleasure,  the  fruges  consumere  nati  of  30?  '!« 
America   holds    out   no    attractions    for   a  permanent  residV 
The  great  capitals  of  Europe   are  the  proper  elements  for 
class.     There  amusements  in  every  shape  and  form  court  th 
As  travellers,  however,  the  country  is  well  worth  their  can 
scrutiny  in  order  to  see  views  of  society  in  some  important3?)^ 
different  from  those  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed.  A  * 

MANUFACTURERS    AND    MECHANICS. 


Although  our  government   has  not  extended  to  manufacfetr  >s- 
the  protection  which  has  been  found   necessary  to  bring.  Jbhei 
the  flourishing  state  in  .which  they  appear  in  England,  Sam 
France,  many  parts  of  Germany,  and  other  countries  in  ivwrr 
and  that  therefore  a  lamentable  destruction  took  place  amongrira- 
nufacturers  in  1817,  18,  19,  and  20,  whereby  probably  three-) 
dred  millions  of  dollars*  were  sacrificed  by  the  destructionbojr;!' 
establishments,    and   the  consequent  depreciation  of  real  nr 
generally  throughout  the  Union,  to  say  nothing  of  the  anrr 
from  that  period;  yet  the  native  energies   of  our  citizen 
overcome  the  difficulties  interposed  in  their  way  —  and  m:: 
manufactures,  particularly  the  cotton  and  woollen,  are  dalliuMt  k 
ing  deeper  root.     But  unfortunately,  in  consequence  of  th?*^  .1 
numbers  crowding  into  them,  for  want  of  adequate  avenues     >r 

*  This  sum  will  excite  surprise  and  incredulity  ;  but  it  is  far  below  the  amount  of  the  r*«l 
loss  to  the  nation.    The  eottonand  woollen  establishments,  erected  at  enormouse  expen**.' 
depreciated  in  value  from  75  to  80  per  cent,  on  the  average  throughout  the  L'nio; 
real  estate  generally  at  least  33  per  cent.     The  estimate  of  that  species  of  property  itirt'    - 
sylvania  In  1815,  made  by  assessors  sworn  to  the  faithful  performance  of  their  duty, 
316,633,889  dollars,  whereas  in  1819  it  was  estimated  by  the  assessors  at  a  depree; 
one-third,  or  about  210,000,000  dollars.     The  depreciation  in  other  states  was  gener 
in  the  same  proportion. 


23 

the  ei  'oyment  of  time,  talents,  capital,  and  industry,  they  bid 
fair  t  .;  overdone,  and  at  no  distant  day.  On  a  full  view  of  the 
subj'  and  the  most  deliberate  reflection,  I  feel  satisfied,  there- 
fore, c  it  while  the  present  policy  of  our  government  continues, 
there  .  little  temptation  for  manufacturers  generally  to  remove  to 
this  co  jntry.*  They  are  created  fast  enough  here. 

Hovever,  there  is  a  considerable  opening  for  mechanics  of 
almost;  jvery  description,  carpenters,  masons,  smiths,  plasterers, 
&c.  '.id  should  the  government  ever  adequately  consult  the 
inten  ^  of  agriculture,  .and  take  decisive  measures  to  make  a 
domestL-  market  for  the  raw  materials  and  provisions  of  our  far- 
mers, by  proper  encouragement  to  manufactures,  there  will  be 
abunuant  room  in  the  United  States  for  all  the  manufacturers  and 
farmers  that  Europe  can  spare.  The  policy  of  this  course  is  so 
plain  id  clear,  that  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  it  will  be 
adop.-i  at  no  distant  day. 


Jou.  ueymen's  wages  in  Philadelphia  vary  from  one  dollar  to  a 
dollar  'ad  a  half  per  day.  Probably  one  dollar  and  an  eighth, 
or  5'.  sterling,  is  about  the  average. 

It  r".y  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule,  with  few  exceptions, 
that : -a  ;al,  industrious  journeymen,  unencumbered  with  families, 
may  save  so  much  of  their  wages,  as,  in  a  few  years,  to  be  ena- 
ble ti»  commence  business  on  their  own  account  on  a  moderate 
scale.  The  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  exclusively  confined  to 
trades  or  occupations  that  require  large  establishments ;  and  even 
in  thesj  the  object  is  generally  attainable  ultimately — only  requir- 
ing i~  Conger  period  of  industry  and  economy.  I  believe  1  am 
perftvtiy  warranted  in  saying  that  one-half,  or  certainly  one-third 
at  !••••'  of  all  the  master  mechanics  and  manufacturers  in  the 
Uni  jd  States,  many  of  whom  are  now  worth  20,  30,  40,  or 
50,0  0  collars,  were  originally  journeymen.  This  is  among  the 
most  ?'  «picious  features  in  the  character  of  American  society. 
Let  ne  add,  that  there  is  probably  not  a  single  person  in  Phila- 
delphia or  New  York,  beyond  the  condition  of  a  mere  pauper, 
who  c  ninot  afford  to  eat  flesh  meat  at  least  once  a  day — and  that 
a  *  I  sawyer  or  common  porter,  steadily  employed,  might, 
by  f  ,ality,  save  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  dollars  per  annum. 

»L.  ,  r,  there  were  4000  hand  looms  employed  in  Philadelphia  and  the  neighbour- 
hood, i  in  consequence  of  glutted  markets,  the  weaver*  were  obliged  to  dispose  of 
their  ,,(.>  ofactures  at  ruinous  sacrifices.  The  consequence  is,  that  one-half,  some  say 
three-,  ui'  ha  of  them,  have  abandoned  the  business  in  despair  and  distress.  Numbers  of 
them  hu  returned  to  Europe— and  others  devoted  themselves  to  labouring  work. 


miNTED  BY  E.  SMITH  AND  CO.  LIVERPOOL. 


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L  006  670  392  7 


A    001  436  882    3 


